A theatre of politicall flying-insects. Wherein especially the nature, the worth, the work, the wonder, and the manner of right-ordering of the bee, is discovered and described / Together with discourses, historical, and observations physical concerning them. And in a second part are annexed meditations, and observations theological and moral, in three centuries upon that subject. By Samuel Purchase.

Samuel Purchas

Date:: 1657

Credit: A theatre of politicall flying-insects. Wherein especially the nature, the worth, the work, the wonder, and the manner of right-ordering of the bee, is discovered and described / Together with discourses, historical, and observations physical concerning them. And in a second part are annexed meditations, and observations theological and moral, in three centuries upon that subject. By Samuel Purchase. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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as in Horfcs and Miresj but Tome differ in magnitude, and that d;verity, tor in moft the male is the greater ; the chief caufe !S» tor that the males have more ftrength of heat than the fe. i^ales; now heat caufetb gi eatneis of growth generally, where there is mcifture enough to work upon : But if there bee found in any creature (which is rarely feen) an over great heat in proportion to the moifture in them, the female is the greater, as ;n ha wkis. Heat alio dilatechche pipes aad organs which cau- iech the ocepaefs of the voyce. - ||j^H Ariftetle delivers that the Drones are bred by themfelves it the Commander lives, but if fiheedyes, they are produced in the Bees cells by the Bees, and thefe fo bred, are more bardyand couregious than the other; buc the truth is (as I hinted before) ail Drone* are bred by the Bees, when they are wearied, and almoft fpent with breeding of females, that by them they may have a new prolifieal power whereby they may breed females afreih; but the Diones arc fiift bred in the Drone combe, which is afterwards at leaft a great part of it fil¬ led with honey; and then in the latter part of the Summer ,they breed fame Cephens among the Nymphs. ‘ ] h'ft Ariftotle could not determine about the breeding of the l.si c. ^r0RC#» fo neither of the making of the Drone-comb, fome- times hec layes it down, yet as the judgement of others (faf- /pending his own,as in aching uncertain and dubious) that they made their own combs in the Hive, or did sffift at leaft the Bees in that labour; fometimes that the Bees made the Drone- combs, but yet onely then,when there was great cxpcaation of much honey; whereas in a Kive ftored with Bees,there are not many dayes difference between the beginning of their oWn combs, and the Drone-comb. Nay they beam rh* H,™*

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