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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 believed in the theory of the carcass, which had not suffered for want of elaboration as time passed. "Forasmuch as Philosophers have given out that bees (for the first sin of mankinde) are begotten of putrefaction; there are not wanting those that deny they were created in the first week of the world. "Of the first generation of Bees Aristotle hath a long discourse. The Philosophers following him have rightly determined in my opinion, that their generation doth proceed from the corruption of some other body: as of a Bull, Oxe, Cow, Calf, very excellent and profitable beasts: the which The Family not only worthy men and without all exception do report; but even rustical and common experience doth confirm. They say that out of the brains of these beasts are bred the Kings and Nobility, and of their flesh the common sort of ordinary Bees. There are likewise kings that are bred out of the marrow of the chine-bone, but then those that come of the brains do far excell the other in feature or comlinesse, in largenesse, in prudence, and in strength of body." Shakespeare alludes to the common superstition of the origin of bees from dead matter in "Henry IV." The king is railing against the prince, when Warwick defends him, saying he will in time forsake his evil companions, to which the king replies, - "'T is seldom when the bee doth leave her comb In the dead carrion."