38 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HONEY-BEE. 



their young a sufficient supply of food ; some of pollen and 

 honey, others of animal substance. Several kinds of wasps 

 provide their nests with living insects, spiders, caterpillars, 

 etc., that they have previously paralyzed, but without kill- 

 ing them, by piercing them with their stings. 



Ants seem to possess even a greater solicitude. When 

 their nests are overthrown, they carry their larvue to some 

 hidden place out of danger. 



We have exhibited the use of the organs of bees as a 

 race. We will now examine the character of each of the 

 three kinds of inhabitants of the bee-hive. 



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 no- 

 ticed in the hive, a bee, larger 

 than the others, and differently 

 shaped, had called it the "King 

 Bee." 



94. To our knowledge, it was an English bee-keeper, 

 Butler, who, first among bee-writers, affirmed in 1G09, that 

 the King Bee was really a queen, and that he had seen her 

 deposit eggs. (" Feminine Monarchy.") 



93. This discovery seems to have passed unnoticed, for 

 Swammerdam, who ascertained the sex of bees by dissec- 

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

 the Queen bee. (Leydc, 1737.) A brief extract from the 

 celebrated Dr. Boerhaave's Memoir of Swammerdam, show- 

 ing the ardor of this naturalist, in his study of bees, should 

 put to blush the arrogance of those superficial observers, 



