The Honey-Makers

Half natural history, half literature: how the honey-bee actually works — tongue, wings, sting, swarm — and then three thousand years of what people have believed about her, from the Vedas to mead.

The Family

7 pages in this part of The Honey-Makers.

The Family

The Queen EACH hive has long been known to possess one bee different from the others, and which received special care and attention from…

The Family: Aristotle

It is true that Aristotle was puzzled about the sex of bees, and that it was nearly two thousand years after his time before the matter was…

The Family: Philosophers

Moffett in his "Theatre of Insects" gives us the seventeenth-century idea on the subject, from which we learn that some at least, still…

The Family: Butler

The modern queen-bee certainly has no spot, like a diadem, glittering on her brow, as Pliny relates, but she is fairly entitled to the…

The Family: Pliny

Later the bees build a number of large thimble-shaped cells, generally on the edges of the comb, and with their mouths opening downward…

The Family: Schirach

Schirach proved by experiment that worker eggs could be transferred to queen cells and developed into queens, by receiving the queen's food.

The Family: Italian

The Italian bee has been introduced into this country by sending queen-bees from Italy, and this variety of bee is now very common here. It…

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