第61章
As bees are a peculiar and extraordinary kind of animal so also their generation appears to be peculiar.That bees should generate without copulation is a thing which may be paralleled in other animals, but that what they generate should not be of the same kind is peculiar to them, for the erythrinus generates an erythrinus and the channa a channa.The reason is that bees themselves are not generated like flies and similar creatures, but from a kind different indeed but akin to them, for they are produced from the leaders.Hence in a sort of way their generation is analogous.For the leaders resemble the drones in size and the bees in possessing a sting; so the bees are like them in this respect, and the drones are like them in size.For there must needs be some overlapping unless the same kind is always to be produced from each; but this is impossible, for at that rate the whole class would consist of leaders.
The bees, then, are assimilated to them their power of generation, the drones in size; if the latter had had a sting also they would have been leaders, but as it is this much of the difficulty has been solved, for the leaders are like both kinds at once, like the bees in possessing a sting, like the drones in size.
But the leaders also must be generated from something.Since it is neither from the bees nor from the drones, it must be from their own kind.The grubs of the kings are produced last and are not many in number.
Thus what happens is this: the leaders generate their own kind but also another kind, that of the bees; the bees again generate another kind, the drones, but do not also generate their own kind, but this has been denied them.And since what is according to Nature is always in due order, therefore it is necessary that it should be denied to the drones even to generate another kind than themselves.
This is just what we find happening, for though the drones are themselves generated, they generate nothing else, but the process reaches its limit in the third stage.And so beautifully is this arranged by Nature that the three kinds always continue in existence and none of them fails, though they do not all generate.
Another fact is also natural, that in fine seasons much honey is collected and many drones are produced but in rainy reasons a large brood of ordinary bees.For the wet causes more residual matter to be formed in the bodies of the leaders, the fine weather in that of the bees, for being smaller in size they need the fine weather more than the kings do.It is right also that the kings, being as it were made with a view to producing young, should remain within, freed from the labour of procuring necessaries, and also that they should be of a considerable size, their bodies being, as it were, constituted with a view to bearing young, and that the drones should be idle as having no weapon to fight for the food and because of the slowness of their bodies.But the bees are intermediate in size between the two other kinds, for this is useful for their work, and they are workers as having to support not only their young but also their fathers.
And it agrees with our views that the bees attend upon their kings because they are their offspring (for if nothing of the sort had been the case the facts about their leadership would be unreasonable), and that, while they suffer the kings to do no work as being their parents, they punish the drones as their children, for it is nobler to punish one's children and those who have no work to perform.The fact that the leaders, being few, generate the bees in large numbers seems to be similar to what obtains in the generation of lions, which at first produce five, afterwards a smaller number each time at last one and thereafter none.So the leaders at first produce a number of workers, afterwards a few of their own kind; thus the brood of the latter is smaller in number than that of the former, but where Nature has taken away from them in number she has made it up again in size.
Such appears to be the truth about the generation of bees, judging from theory and from what are believed to be the facts about them; the facts, however, have not yet been sufficiently grasped; if ever they are, then credit must be given rather to observation than to theories, and to theories only if what they affirm agrees with the observed facts.
A further indication that bees are produced without copulation is the fact that the brood appears small in the cells of the comb, whereas, whenever insects are generated by copulation, the parents remain united for a long time but produce quickly something of the nature of a scolex and of a considerable size.
Concerning the generation of animals akin to them, as hornets and wasps, the facts in all cases are similar to a certain extent, but are devoid of the extraordinary features which characterize bees; this we should expect, for they have nothing divine about them as the bees have.For the so-called 'mothers' generate the young and mould the first part of the combs, but they generate by copulation with one another, for their union has often been observed.As for all the differences of each of these kind from one another and from bees, they must be investigated with the aid of the illustrations to the Enquiries.