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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 indisputably settled, and yet in his "History of Animals " we read this very remarkable statement. Speaking of the "kings," or "rulers," he says: "By some they are called the mother-bees, as if they were the parents of the rest; and they argue that unless the ruler is present, drones only are produced, and no bees. Others affirm that drones are males, and the bees females."

Thus in Aristotle's time was guessed the truth that the scientists of another age were to demonstrate.

Young bees are produced from eggs laid by the so-called queen, - a fact not known to the ancients, who had various theories concerning the origin of bees, the most popular of which we will let Aristotle state. "All persons are not agreed as to the generation of bees, for some say that they collect them from the flowers of the honeysuckle, and others from the flowers of the calamus. Others again say that they are found in the flowers of the olive, and produce this proof, that the swarms are most abundant when the olives are fertile. Other persons affirm that they collect the young of the drones from any of the substances we have named, but that the rulers produce the young of the bees."

Virgil has the bees gather their young from leaves. "Chiefly will you marvel at this custom peculiar to bees, - they themselves cull their progeny with their mouths from leaves and fragrant herbs; they themselves raise up a new king and little subjects, and build new palaces and waxen realms."

The pretty fancy that the bees gathered their young from flowers and leaves lingered for centuries, opposed, as we know, by the less pleasing theory that bees were bred spontaneously from carcasses.