Mr. Hunter’s Observations on Bees. 133 
and which would not be suited to a climate whose seasons are 
very different ; for insects of countries, whose seasons are 
strongly marked, as in this, have a period in their life which 
it is little in our power to investigate, and can scarcely be dis- 
covered but by accident, for experiments often give little 
assistance ; therefore we are obliged to fill up this blank by 
reasoning, and from analogy, where we have any. This pe- 
riod is principally the winter, in those insects who live through 
that season. Animals of season are somewhat like most ve- 
getables ; while the common bee is only an animal of seasons 
in the common actions of life, or what may be called its 
voluntary actions, and therefore is somewhat like the human 
species, suited to every country ; which may be the reason 
why it is so universal an animal, for I believe bees are one of 
the most universal animals known : yet this may arise from 
cultivation, in consequence of which, they have been brought 
into climates, where, of themselves, they would not have 
come. 
Insects are so small, and so few of them are capable of 
being domesticated, that the duration of their life is not 
easily ascertained ; therefore we are to rely more on circum- 
stantial, than on positive or demonstrative proof ; and per- 
haps the life of the common bee may be least in our power to 
know, for their numbers in the same society make it almost 
impossible to be ascertained. From their forming a colony, or 
society, which keeps stationary, the continuance of this society 
is known, but to what age the individual lives, is not known ; 
we are certain, however, that it is only the labourers and 
queens that continue the society, for the males die the same 
year they are formed. From their fixing on the branches of 
