[23] A kind of broom.
[24] Spanish broom, the Stipa tenacissima of Linnæus. Ropes were made of it. See B. xix. c. 7.
[25] Or, the “wild man.”
[26] Huber has discovered that there are two kinds of bees of neutral sex, or, as he calls them, unprolific females, the workers, which go out, and the nurses, which are smaller, and stay in the hive to tend the larvæ.
[27] From the honey found in the corollæ of flowers. This, after being prepared in the first stomach of the bee, is deposited in the cell which is formed for its reception.
[28] Cuvier says that the three kinds of cells are absolutely necessary, and that they do not depend on the greater or less abundance. The king of the ancients is what we know as the queen bee, which is impregnated by the drones or males.
[29] This is the fact, but not so their imperfect state.
[30] They do not work, but merely impregnate the queen; after which they are driven from the hive, and perish of cold and starvation.
[31] It appears, as Cuvier says, that the ancients had some notion that the swarm was multiplied by the aid of the drones.
[32] Cuvier says that the cell for the future queen is different from the others, and much larger. The bees also supply the queen larva much more abundantly with food, and of more delicate quality.