The B® OVE 
the rays on the external furface of the eye, 
evidently performs the act of vifion in the Bee. 
The incubation of the egg happens only by 
the heat of the external atmofphere, and by 
the heat which .all the Bees enclofed in the 
hive, produce by their perpetual motion ; for 
that bufinefs is performed here in no other 
manner than as it is with refpect to the eggs of 
Silkworms and other infects, which are hatched 
by the natural heat of the feafon only: fo that 
there is no neceflity for any Bees to have the 
care of this; nor are there any in the hive that 
have the office of fitting to hatch the eggs. 
dt is therefore an idle imagination, from which 
the male Bees are called brooders, or hatchers 
of the eggs, and has been received only, be- 
caufe the nature of Bees has been hitherto un- 
known; ner has it been obferved by thofe who 
maintain this doctrine, that at every feafon of 
the year the Bees breed, and young juft hatched 
are therefore found in the hive before thefe 
pretended brooding Bees appear, which do not 
come forth but on the approach of a fwarm. 
Thus that error, at this time fo univerfal among 
us, arofe merely from want of obfervation. The 
ancients have likewife erred who called thefe 
Bees drones; and moreover, if we attend to 
what Goedaert relates of Bees in the fecond 
part of his Natural Met. Exper. 46, and which 
the learned Dr. de Mey alfo afterwards affirm- 
ed to be true in his annotations: we {hall 
clearly fee that the former, though he other- 
wife obferves a tolerable method, is; however, 
fo confufed and void of all order on this occa- 
fion, that his narrative cannot be really called 
a detail of things, but only a difordered heap 
of words. He there confounds the humble 
Bees, Hornets and Bees one with another. For 
my own part, I efteem nothing in the works of 
Goedaert but the figures; though even thofe, 
notwithitanding that they have been drawn ac- 
cording to living {pecimens, have in many in- 
ftances very confiderable faults. But it is na- 
tural to men to commit errors, nor do I think 
myfelf free from them, and therefore we who 
follow the fame ftudies are obliged to affift 
and bring each other into the right way, but at 
the fame time remembring our own weaknefs, 
we fhould claim nofuperiority over others. But 
when a perfon will not fcruple to darken the 
truth on purpofe, in order to depreciate an- 
other, or to favour his particular opinion, he 
is unpardonable, It were much to be withed, 
that Goedaert had finifhed his own obfervations. 
Thofe come nearer the truth, who, know- 
ing more accurately the nature of the male 
Bees, called them the more noble kind, for 
they in reality live on the labours of the com- 
mon Bees, and are at the fame time of a more 
generous, mild, and tender difpofition; but that 
the males exclude the reft of the Bees from 
the at of incubation is ridiculous. ‘The eggs 
of Eees evidently ftand erect, and they mutt 
not nor cannot be without hurting them: fo 
far impoffible it is to hatch them by fiting on 
them. To which may be added, that when 
172 
of NADI URE; 
or, 
the egg is depdfited in an imperfect cell, as is 
often the cafe, there is no place for the male 
Bee that is fuppofed to fit upon it, to reft its 
body, unlefs it fhould flop up the way, and 
be an infurmountable obftacle to the reft of 
the Bees, when they attempt to perfec that 
cell. When the egg is at length grown ma- 
ture by the natural heat of the hive, then there 
is excluded from it a very tender and {mall 
Vermicle or Worm which did not want hatch- 
ing, but needs now continual and perpetual 
nourifhment: and not only the males, but even 
the females alfo are incapable of this bufine(s. 
To this may be added, that when thefe Worms 
have eaten fufficiently, if they afterwards lie in 
a warm place, they are {pontaneoufly and with- 
out the affiftance of any particular heat com- 
municated by the Bees, changed into Nymphs, 
and then again into Bees. This I myfelf have 
experienced in my own chamber, with refpect 
to a great number of fuch Worms, fome few 
days after the beginning of September, before 
the nights began to grow cold. Nay, this ex- 
periment fucceeded fo far, that in fome cells 
which I had opened, I already faw the eyes of 
the Nymph changing, and from a limpid or 
clear white, becoming of a beautiful but fome- 
what pale purple. This is indeed the firft re- 
martkable change the Nymph undergoes. I 
have likewife obferved the fame thing in the 
humble Bee defcribed by Goedaert under the 
name of the Apis. . 
We fhould particularly obferve here, that 
there is fuch a wonderful heat in the hives, 
even in the midft of winter, that the honey 
does not concrete or lofe its original fluid con- 
fiftence, nor is gathered into grains or cryftals, 
unlefs in hives in which the Bees happen to 
be fewer than ufual. The Bees, when they are 
fruitful, nourifh, cherifh, and warm their off- 
{pring in the midft of winter, and preferve a 
mutual heat amongft each other. But Ido not 
know that this is the cafe in any other infects, 
for even the Hornets themfelves, as well as 
Waips, humble Bees and Flies, are all rigid 
and motionlefs in the winter; and in all that 
feafon neither move nor change place, nor do 
they take any nourifhment, nor difcharge any 
feeces. Something fimilar likewife holds in 
fome fpecies of the garden and other Snails, 
which, when they have been about that time 
cleared from all excrements, by continual ab- 
ftinence become a cleanly and agreeable food. 
The Worm of the Bee, excluded out of its 
egg in this manner, and ftript of its tender 
skin, muft be afterwards, as I have obferved, 
nourifhed and fed. But as it never, like the 
Worms of other infects which creep about, or 
are conveyed elfewhere, changes that place 
wherein it was firft repofited in its cell; hence 
this Worm wants a nurfe: of this laborious care 
and attendance the labouring or common Bees 
take the charge on themfelves, and nourifh, 
cherifh, and bring up this tender offspring, un- 
til, from a minute Worm, like a point, it is at 
length changed into a Nymph, and finally . a 
ce 
