HISTORY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 19 



she (the queen) lays every egg in the hive, she 

 ought rather be called the mother bee, for indeed 

 from the best observation that ever I could make, 

 she possesses and exerts no sovereignty over the 

 other bees ; she evidences the greatest anxiety for the 

 good of the commonwealth with which she is con- 

 nected, and indeed every member of it shows an 

 equal regard for her welfare ; but I never could ob- 

 serve that she issues any positive orders to be punctu- 

 ally obeyed by the other bees. The truth seems to 

 be, that she and the other bees are all equally ac- 

 quainted with their duty by instinct, and have an 

 equal pleasure in performing it, without waiting for 

 orders from each other. That there is, nevertheless^ 

 the greatest order and regularity among them, is cer- 

 tain, for they lay their plans and execute them in the 

 best possible manner, by the influence of the - - above 

 powerful substitute for reason." 



THE ECONOMY OF THE COLONY DIRECTED BY THE WORKERS. 



It seems evident that in the creation and organi- 

 zation of societies or colonies of honey bees, as in 

 other things, the sexes are, to a certain extent, depend- 

 ent on each other for the propagation and perpetua- 

 tion of their species ; but here we have the strange 

 anomaly of the neuter gender, or rather of the unde^ 

 veloped sex (of which the colony is mainly composed), 

 feeding and nursing the young, and caring for them 

 with as much parental devotion and solicitude as 

 though they were actually their own offspring, the 

 queen simply depositing the eggs in their appro-- 



