How bees generate their young has been a subject of great and subtle research among the learned; seeing that no one has ever witnessed[50] any sexual intercourse among these insects. Many persons have expressed an opinion that they must be produced from flowers, aptly and artistically arranged by Nature; while others, again, suppose that they are produced from an intercourse with the one which is to be found in every swarm, and is usually called the king. This one, they say, is the only male[51] in the hive, and is endowed with such extraordinary proportions, that it may not become exhausted in the performance of its duties. Hence it is, that no offspring can be produced without it, all the other bees being females,[52] and attending it in its capacity of a male, and not as their leader. This opinion, however, which is otherwise not improbable, is sufficiently refuted by the generation of the drones. For on what grounds could it possibly happen that the same intercourse should produce an offspring part of which is perfect, and part in an imperfect state? The first surmise which I have mentioned would appear, indeed, to be much nearer the truth, were it not the case that here another difficulty meets us—the circumstance that sometimes, at the extremity of the combs, there are produced bees of a larger size, which put the others to flight. This noxious bee bears the name of _œstrus_,[53] and how is it possible that it should ever be produced, if it is the fact that the bees themselves form their progeny?[54] A fact, however, that is well ascertained, is, that bees sit,[55] like the domestic fowl, that which is hatched by them at first having the appearance of a white maggot, and lying across and adhering so tenaciously to the wax as to seem to be part of it. The king, however, from the earliest moment, is of the colour of honey, just as though he were made of the choicest flowers, nor has he at any time the form of a grub, but from the very first is provided with wings.[56] The rest of the bees, as soon as they begin to assume a shape, have the name of _nymphæ_,[57] while the drones are called _sirenes_, or _cephenes_. If a person takes off the head of either kind before the wings are formed, the rest of the body is considered a most choice morsel by the parents. In process of time the parent bees instil nutriment into them, and sit upon them, making on this occasion a loud humming noise, for the purpose, it is generally supposed, of generating that warmth which is so requisite for hatching the young. At length the membrane in which each of them is enveloped, as though it lay in an egg, bursts asunder, and the whole swarm comes to light.