Aristotle, Second Part of THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS Complete

Translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

II: 128 pages - You are on Page 31

Part 22

Of bees there are various species. The best kind is a little round mottled insect; another is long, and resembles the anthrena; a third is a black and flat-bellied, and is nick-named the 'robber'; a fourth kind is the drone, the largest of all, but stingless and inactive. And this proportionate size of the drone explains why some bee-masters place a net-work in front of the hives; for the network is put to keep the big drones out while it lets the little bees go in.

Of the king bees there are, as has been stated, two kinds. In every hive there are more kings than one; and a hive goes to ruin if there be too few kings, not because of anarchy thereby ensuing, but, as we are told, because these creatures contribute in some way to the generation of the common bees. A hive will go also to ruin if there be too large a number of kings in it; for the members of the hives are thereby subdivided into too many separate factions.

Whenever the spring-time is late a-coming, and when there is drought and mildew, then the progeny of the hive is small in number. But when the weather is dry they attend to the honey, and in rainy weather their attention is concentrated on the brood; and this will account for the coincidence of rich olive-harvests and abundant swarms.

The bees first work at the honeycomb, and then put the pupae in it: by the mouth, say those who hold the theory of their bringing them from elsewhere. After putting in the pupae they put in the honey for subsistence, and this they do in the summer and autumn; and, by the way, the autumn honey is the better of the two.

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