British Bees / An Introduction into the Studies of the Natural History and Economy of the Bees Indigenous to the British Isles

by William Edward Shuckard

AND A NOTICE OF THEIR FAVOURITE PLANTS.

It is very natural that the “Bee” should interest the majority of us, so many agreeable and attractive associations being connected with the name. It is immediately suggestive of spring, sunshine, and flowers,—meadows gaily enamelled, green lanes, thymy downs, and fragrant heaths. It speaks of industry, forethought, and competence,—of well-ordered government, and of due but not degrading subordination. The economy of the hive has been compared by our great poet to the polity of a populous kingdom under monarchical government. He says:—

“Therefore doth Heaven divide

The state of man in divers functions,

Setting endeavour in continual motion;

To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,

Obedience: for so work the honey-bees;

Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach

The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

They have a king, and officers of sorts: