The Honey-Bee: Its Natural History, Physiology and Management
9781465668783
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Although the great addition which has of late been made to our knowledge of the honey-bee, may seem to render a reference to ancient writers comparatively unimportant; yet a few prefatory observations, upon the rise and progress of apiarian science, may not be out of season. The natural history and management of bees would probably occupy the attention of man at an early period. Surrounded by a boundless variety of living creatures, he would naturally be led to notice their habits and œconomy; and no part of the animal world, or at any rate no part of the world of insects, would be more likely to engage his consideration than the honey-bee. Honey would, in all probability, constitute one of his earliest luxuries; and as he advanced in civilization, he would, as a matter of course, avail himself of the industry of its collectors, by bringing them as much as possible within his reach; and by this means he would take an important step towards an acquaintance with entomology. But the progress made by our earliest progenitors, in this or any other science, is involved in the obscurity and uncertainty necessarily appertaining to the infancy of society. The first indications of attention to natural history are contained in the Old Testament. The interest which it excited in the mind of Solomon, evinces how highly it was esteemed in his time. The records of its first progression are however entirely lost, and no regular history of this science exists prior to the days of Aristotle, who under the auspices and through the munificence of his pupil Alexander the Great, was enabled to prosecute with the greatest advantage, for the time in which he lived, his experiments and inquiries into every department of natural history. Alexander felt so strong a desire to promote this object, that he placed at the disposal of Aristotle a very large sum of money, and in his Asiatic expedition employed above a thousand persons in collecting and transmitting to him specimens from every part of the animal kingdom. Aristotle is therefore to be regarded as having laid the first foundation of our knowledge of that kingdom. He must likewise have derived great advantages from the discoveries and observations of preceding writers, to whose works he would probably have easy access. No individual naturalist could, without such assistance, have produced so valuable and extensive a work on natural science as that which Aristotle has bequeathed to posterity. And though the opinions of himself and his contemporaries have been transmitted to us in an imperfect manner, and abound in errors, still he and his editor Theophrastus may be regarded as the only philosophical naturalists of antiquity, whose labours and discoveries present us with any portion of satisfactory knowledge. The observations of Aristotle on the subject of the honey-bee were afterwards “embellished and invested with a species of divinity, by the matchless pen of Virgil,” in his fourth Georgic; and it excites feelings of regret, that poetry which for its beauty and elegance is so universally admired, should be the vehicle of opinions that are founded in error.
