PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 435 



of understanding. Had his capacity been better, and directed to the same 

 object, he had perhaps abated much of our wonder at the feats of a more 

 modern exhibitor of bees ; and we may justly say of him now, 



Thou, 



Had thy presiding star propitious shone, 

 Shouldst Wildmaa be." ' 



The worker bees are annual insects, though the queen will sometimes 

 live more than two years ; but, as every swarm consists of old and young, 

 this is no argument for burning them. It is a saying of bee-keepers in 

 Holland, that the first swallow and the first bee foretel each other.- This 

 perhaps may be correct there ; but with us the appearance of bees 

 considerably precedes that of the swallow ; for when the early crocuses 

 open, if the weather be w&rin, they may always be found busy in the 

 blossom. 



The time that bees will inhabit the same stations is wonderful. Reau- 

 mur mentions a countryman who preserved bees in the same hive for thirty 

 years.^ Thorley tells us that a swarm took possession of a spot under the 

 leads of the study of Ludovicus Vives in Oxford, where they continued a 

 hundred and ten years, from 1520 to 1630.'* These circumstances have 

 led authors to ascribe to bees a greater age than they can claim. Thus 

 MoufFet, because he knew a bees' nest which had remained thirty years in 

 the same quarters, concludes that they are very long-lived, and very 

 sapiently doubts whether they even die of old age at all l^ Which is just 

 as wise as if a man should contend, because London had existed from 

 before the time of Julius Caesar, that therefore its inhabitants must be 

 immortal. 



Bees are subject to many accidents ; particularly, as I have said above, 

 they often fall or are precipitated by the wind into water ; and though 

 like the cat a bee has not nine lives, nor 



"Nine times emerging from the crystal flood, 

 She mews to every watery god,'' 



yet she will bear submersion nine hours ; and, if exposed to sufficient heat, 

 be reanimated. In this case their proboscis is generally unfolded, and 

 stretched to its full length. At the extremity of this motion is first per- 

 ceived, and then at the ends of the legs. After these symptoms appear 

 they soon recover, fold up the tongue, and plume themselves for flight.^ 

 Experimentalists may therefore, without danger, submerge a hive of bees, 

 when they want to examine them particularly, for they will all revive upon 

 being set to the fire. Reaumur says that in winter, during frosts, the bees 

 remain in a torpid state. He must mean severe frosts ; for Huber relates 

 an instance, when upon a sudden emergency the bees of one of his hives 

 set themselves to work in the middle of January ; and he observes that 

 they are so little torpid in winter, that even when the thermometer abroad 

 is below the freezing point, it stands high in populous hives. Swammer- 

 dam, and after him the two authors last quoted, found that sometimes, 

 even in the middle of winter, hives have young brood in them, which the 

 bees feed and attend to.'' In an instance of this kind, which fell under 



^ White's Nat. Hist. 8v'o. i. 339. « Swamm. Bib. Nat. ed. Hill. i. 160. 



' Ubi. supr. &Q5. * 118. ^ Thcatr. lns.2\. « Reaum. v. 540. 



' January 11. 1813. My bees were out, and very alert this day. The thermometer stood 



