On the Threshold of the Hive 
bee; and all that we can gather there- 
from — which indeed is exceedingly little 
—we may find condensed in the fourth 
book of Virgil’s Georgics. 
The real history of the bee begins in 
the seventeenth century, with the discov- 
eries of the great Dutch savant Swammer- 
dam. It is well, however, to add this 
detail, but little known: before Swam- 
merdam a Flemish naturalist named 
Clutius had arrived at certain important 
truths, such as the sole maternity of the 
queen and her possession of the attributes 
of both sexes, but he had left these un- 
proved. Swammerdam founded the true 
methods of scientific investigation; he 
invented the microscope, contrived injec- 
tions to ward off decay, was the first to 
dissect the bees, and by the discovery of 
the ovaries and the oviduct definitely fixed 
the sex of the queen, hitherto looked 
upon as a king, and threw the whole 
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