40 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE. 



The Queen. 



93. Although honey-bees have attracted the attention of 

 naturalists for ages, the sex of the 

 inmates of the bee-hive was, for a 

 long time, a mystery. The ancient 

 authors, having noticed in the hive, 

 a bee, larger than the others, and 

 differently shaped, had called it the 

 "King Bee." 



^'S- ■'■^- 94. To our knowledge, it was 



an English bee-keeper, Butler; who, first among bee- writers, 

 affirmed in 1609, that the King Bee was really a queen, and 

 that he had seen her deposit eggs. ("Feminine Monarchy.") 

 95. This discovery seems to have passed unnoticed, for 

 Swammerdam, who ascertained the sex of bees by dissection, 

 is held as having been the first to proclaim the sex of the 

 queen-bee. (Leyde, 1737.) A brief extract from the cele- 

 brated Dr. Boerhaave's Memoir of Swammerdam, showing 

 the ardor of this naturalist, in his study of bees, should piit^ 

 to blush the arrogance of those superficial observers, who are 

 too wise to avail themselves of the knowledge of others: 



"This treatise on Bees proved so fatiguing a performance, 

 that Swammerdam never afterwards recovered even the appear- 

 ance of his former health and vigor. He was most continually- 

 engaged by day in making observations, and as constantly by 

 night in recording them by drawings and suitable explanations. 



"His daily labor began at six in the morning, when the sun 

 afforded him light enough to survey such minute objects; and 

 from that hour till twelve, he continued without interruption, 

 all the while exposed in the open air to the scorching heat of 

 the sun, bareheaded, for fear of intercepting his sight, and his 

 head in a manner dissolving into sweat under the irresistible 

 ardors of that powerful luminary. And if he desisted at noon, 

 it was only because the strength of his eyes was too much weak- 

 ened by the extraordinary afflux of light, and the use of micro- 

 scopes, to continue any longer upon such small objects. 



