14 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 
On the life-history of the honey-bee Pliny 
wrote voluminously. He tells us of a nation of 
industrious creatures ruled over by a king, dis- 
tinguished by a white spot on his forehead like a 
diadem. These king-bees were of three sorts— 
red, black, and mottled ; but the red were superior 
to all the rest. He appears to accept, though 
guardedly, the old legend that sexual intercourse 
among bees was divinely abrogated in favour of a 
system of procreation originating in the flowers. 
He mentions a current belief—which must have 
been the boldest of heresies at the time—that the 
king-bee is the only male, all the rest being 
females. The existence of the drones he explains 
away very ingeniously. ‘They would seem,” he 
says, ‘to be a kind of imperfect bee, formed the 
very last of all; the expiring effort, as it were, of 
worn-out and exhausted old age, a late and tardy 
offspring.” 
The discipline in the hives was, according to 
Pliny, a very rigid affair. Early in the morning 
the whole population was awakened by one bee 
sounding a clarion. The day’s work was carried 
through on strict military lines, and at evening the 
king’s bugler was again to be observed flying 
about the hive, uttering the same shrill fanfaronade 
by which the colony was roused at daybreak. 
After this note was heard, all work ceased for the 
day, and the hive became immediately silent. 
His book abounds in curious details as to hive- 
