AUTHOR'S CONCLUSION. 323 
application of modern naturalists to the enquiry is 
to be dated from the beginning of the cightcenth 
century, when Maraldi examined it with his ac- 
customed care; and Réaumur afterwards, as we 
have seen, carried his investigations much farther. 
The interest of the subject seemed to increase with 
the progress made in their enquiries; and about 
the year 1765 a society was formed at Little 
Bautzen in Upper Lusatia, whose sole object was 
the study of bees. It was formed under the 
patronage of the Elector of Saxony. The celebrated 
Schirach was one of its original members; and 
soon after its establishment he made his famous 
discovery of the power which the bees have to 
supply the loss of their queen, by forming a large 
cell out of three common ones, and feeding the 
erub of a worker upon royal jelly; a discovery so 
‘startling to naturalists, that Bonnet, in 1769, 
earnestly urged the society not to lower its credit by 
countenancing such a wild error, which he regarded 
as repugnant to all we know of the habits of 
insects; admitting, however, that he should not be 
so incredulous of any observations tending to prove 
the propagation of the race of the queen bee 
without any co-operation of a male,* a notion since 
shown by Huber to be wholly chimerical. In 1771 
a second institution, with the same limited object, 
was founded at Lauter, under the Elector Palatine’s 
patronage, and of this Riem, scarcely less known in 
this branch of science than Schirach, was a member. 
“The greatest progress, however, was afterwards 
* CHuvres, x. 100, 104. 
y 2 
