CHAPTER XX THE KING’S BEE-MASTER

 Students of old books on the honey-bee—and perhaps there has been more written about bees during the last two thousand years than of all other creatures put together—do not quite know what to make of Moses Rusden, who was Charles the Second’s bee-master, and wrote his “Further Discovery of Bees” in the year 1679.  The wonder about Rusden is that obviously he knew so much that was true about bee-life, and yet seems, of set purpose, to have imparted so little.  He was a shrewdly observant man, of lifelong experience in his craft.  His system of bee-keeping would not have disgraced many an apiculturist of the present time, often yielding him a honey harvest averaging sixty pounds to the hive, which is a result not always achieved even by our foremost apiarian¹ scientists.  His hives were fitted with glass windows, through which he was continually studying his bees.  He must have had endless opportunities of proving the fallacy and folly² of the ancient classic notions as to bee-life.  And yet we find him gravely upholding almost the entire framework of fantastic error, old even in Pliny’s time; and speaking of the king-bee with his generals, captains, and retinue³, honey that was a dew divinely sent down from heaven, the miraculous⁴ propagation of bee-kind from the flowers, and all the other curious myths and fables⁵ handed down from writer to writer since the very earliest days.

 

But, reading on in the little time-stained, worm-eaten book, it is not very difficult to guess at last why Rusden adopted this attitude.  He was the King’s bee-master, and therefore a courtier first and a naturalist⁶ afterwards.  In the first flush of the Restoration, anyone who had anything to say in support of the divine right of kings was certain to catch the Royal eye.  Rusden admits himself conversant⁷ with Butler’s “Feminine Monarchie,” published some fifty years before, in which the writer argues that the single great bee in a hive was really a female.  To a man of Rusden’s practical experience and deductive quality of mind, this statement must have lead, and no doubt did lead, to all sorts of speculations⁸ and discoveries.  But with a ruler of Charles the Second’s temperament⁹, feminine monarchies¹⁰ were not to be thought of.  Rusden saw at once his restrictions¹¹ and his peculiar¹² opportunity, and wrote his book on bees, which is really an ingenious attempt to show that the system of a self-ruling commonwealth¹³ is a violation¹⁴ of nature, and that, whether for bees or men, government under a king is the divinely ordained¹⁵ state.

 

Whether, however, Rusden was deliberately¹⁶ insincere, or actually succeeded in blinding himself conveniently for his own purposes, it must be admitted not only that he argued the case with singular adroitness¹⁷, but that never did facts adapt themselves so readily to either conscious or unconscious misrepresentation.  In the glass-windowed hives of the Royal bee-house at Saint James’s, he was able to show the King a nation of creatures evidently united under a common rule, labouring together in harmony and producing works little short of miraculous to the mediæval eye.  He saw that these creatures were of two sorts, each going about its duty after its kind, but that in each colony there was one bee, and only one, which differed entirely¹⁸ from the rest.  To this single large bee all the others paid the greatest deference¹⁹.  It was cared for and nourished, and attended assiduously in its progress over the combs.  All the humanly approved tokens of royalty²⁰ were manifest about it.  No wonder the King’s bee-master was not slow in recognising that, in those troublous times, he could do his patron no greater service than by pointing out to the superstitious²¹ and ignorant multitude—still looking askance at the restored monarchy—such indisputable evidence in nature of Charles’s parallel right.

 

And perhaps nature has never been at such pains to conceal²² her true processes from the vulgar eye as in this case of the honey-bee.  If Rusden ever suspected that the one large bee in each colony was really the mother of all the rest, and had set himself to prove it, he would have found the whole array of visible facts in opposition²³ to him.  If ever a truth seemed established beyond all reasonable doubt, it was that the ordinary male-and-female principle, pertaining²⁴ throughout the rest of creation, was abrogated²⁵ in the single instance of the honey-bee.  The ancients explained this anomaly as a special gift from the gods, and the bees were supposed to discover the germs of bee-life in certain kinds of flowers and to bring them home to the cells for development.  Rusden improved upon this idea by assigning to his king-bee the duty of fertilising these embryos²⁶ when they were placed in the cells, for he could not otherwise explain a fact of which he was perfectly²⁷ well aware—that the large bee travelled the combs unceasingly, thrusting its body into each cell in turn.  Rusden also held that the worker-bees were females, but only—as Freemasons would say—in a speculative²⁸ manner.  They neither laid eggs nor bore young.  Their maternal²⁹ duties consisted only in gathering³⁰ the essence of bee-life from the blossoms and nursing and tending the young bees when they emerged from their cradle-cells.  The drones were a great difficulty to Rusden.  To admit them to be males—as some held even in his day—would have been against the declared object of his book, as tending to entrench³¹ upon royal prerogatives³².  Luckily, this truth was as easy of apparent refutation as all the rest.  No one had ever detected any traffic of the sexes amongst bees either in or out of the hives; nor, indeed, is such detection possible.  The fact that the queen-bee has concourse with the drone only once in her whole life, and that their meeting takes place in the upper air far out of reach of human observation, is knowledge only of yesterday.  In Rusden’s time such a marvel³³ was never even suspected.  As the drones, therefore, were never seen to approach the worker bees or to notice them in any way, and as also young bees were bred in the hives during many months when no drones existed at all, Rusden’s ingenuity³⁴ was equal to the task of bringing them into line with his theory.

 

If he had lived a few decades earlier, and it had been Cromwell, instead of the heartless, middle-aged³⁵ rake of a sovereign, whom he had to propitiate³⁶, no doubt Rusden would have asked his public to swallow Pliny’s whole apiarian philosophy at a gulp³⁷.  Bee-life would then have been held up as a foreshadowing of celestial³⁸ conditions, and the facts would have lent themselves to this view equally as well.  But his task was to represent the economy of the hive as a clear proof of divine authority in kingship, and it must be conceded that, as far as knowledge went in those days, he established his case.

 

His book was published under the ægis of the Royal Society, and “by his Majestie’s especial Command,” which was less a testimony³⁹ of the King’s love for natural history than of his political astuteness⁴⁰.  Apart, however, from its peculiar mission, the book is interesting as a sidelight on the old bee-masters and their ways.  Probably it represents very fairly the extent of knowledge at the time, which had evidently advanced very little since the days of Virgil.  Rusden taught, with the ancients, that honey was a secretion⁴¹ from the stars, and that wax was gathered from the flowers, as well as the generative matter before mentioned.  He had one theory which seems to have been essentially⁴² his own.  The little lumps of many-coloured pollen⁴³, which the worker-bees fetch home so industriously⁴⁴ in the breeding season, he held to be the actual substance of the young bees to come, in an elementary state.  These, he tells us, were placed in the cells, having absorbed the feminine virtues⁴⁵ from their bearers on the way.  The king-bee then visited each in turn, vivifying them with his essence, after which they had nothing to do but grow into perfect bees.  He got over the difficulty of the varying sexes of the bees bred in a hive by asserting that these lumps of animable matter were created in the flowers, either female, or neuter—as he called the drones—or royal, as the case might be.  Having denied the drones any part in the production of their species, or in furnishing the needs of the hive, Rusden was hard put to it to find a use for them in a system where it would have been lèse-majesté to suppose anything superfluous⁴⁶ or amiss.  He therefore hits upon an idea which, curiously⁴⁷ enough, embodies⁴⁸ matter still under dispute at the present time, although it is being slowly recognised as a truth.  Rusden says the use of the drones is to take the place of the other bees in the hive when these are mostly away honey-gathering.  Their great bodies act as so many warming stoves, supplying the necessary heat to the hatching embryos and the maturing stores of honey.  It is well known that drones gather together side by side, principally in the remoter parts of the hive, often completely covering these outer combs.  They seldom rouse from their lethargy of repletion⁴⁹ to take their daily flight until about midday, when most of the ingathering work is over, and the hive is again fairly populous⁵⁰ with worker-bees.  Probably, therefore, Rusden was quite right in his theory, which, hundreds of years after, is only just beginning to be accepted as a fact.

1 apiarian   

adj.蜜蜂的，养蜂的

参考例句：

2 folly   

n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话

参考例句：

• Learn wisdom by the folly of others.从别人的愚蠢行动中学到智慧。
• Events proved the folly of such calculations.事情的进展证明了这种估计是愚蠢的。

3 retinue   

n.侍从；随员

参考例句：

• The duchess arrived,surrounded by her retinue of servants.公爵夫人在大批随从人马的簇拥下到达了。
• The king's retinue accompanied him on the journey.国王的侍从在旅途上陪伴着他。

4 miraculous   

adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的

参考例句：

• The wounded man made a miraculous recovery.伤员奇迹般地痊愈了。
• They won a miraculous victory over much stronger enemy.他们战胜了远比自己强大的敌人，赢得了非凡的胜利。

5 fables   

n.寓言( fable的名词复数 )；神话，传说

参考例句：

• Some of Aesop's Fables are satires. 《伊索寓言》中有一些是讽刺作品。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Little Mexican boys also breathe the American fables. 墨西哥族的小孩子对美国神话也都耳濡目染。 来自辞典例句

6 naturalist   

n.博物学家(尤指直接观察动植物者)

参考例句：

• He was a printer by trade and naturalist by avocation.他从事印刷业，同时是个博物学爱好者。
• The naturalist told us many stories about birds.博物学家给我们讲述了许多有关鸟儿的故事。

7 conversant   

adj.亲近的，有交情的，熟悉的

参考例句：

• Mr.Taylor is thoroughly conversant with modern music.泰勒先生对现代音乐很精通。
• We become the most conversant stranger in the world.我们变成了世界上最熟悉的陌生人。

8 speculations   

n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断

参考例句：

• Your speculations were all quite close to the truth. 你的揣测都很接近于事实。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• This possibility gives rise to interesting speculations. 这种可能性引起了有趣的推测。 来自《用法词典》

9 temperament   

n.气质，性格，性情

参考例句：

• The analysis of what kind of temperament you possess is vital.分析一下你有什么样的气质是十分重要的。
• Success often depends on temperament.成功常常取决于一个人的性格。

10 monarchies   

n. 君主政体, 君主国, 君主政治

参考例句：

• It cleared away a number of monarchies. 它清除了好几个君主政体。
• Nowadays, there are few monarchies left in the world. 现在世界上君主制的国家已经很少了。

11 restrictions   

约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则）

参考例句：

• I found the restrictions irksome. 我对那些限制感到很烦。
• a snaggle of restrictions 杂乱无章的种种限制

12 peculiar   

adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的

参考例句：

• He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
• He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。

13 commonwealth   

n.共和国，联邦，共同体

参考例句：

• He is the chairman of the commonwealth of artists.他是艺术家协会的主席。
• Most of the members of the Commonwealth are nonwhite.英联邦的许多成员国不是白人国家。

14 violation   

n.违反(行为)，违背(行为)，侵犯

参考例句：

• He roared that was a violation of the rules.他大声说，那是违反规则的。
• He was fined 200 dollars for violation of traffic regulation.他因违反交通规则被罚款200美元。

15 ordained   

v.任命（某人）为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 )；授予（某人）圣职；（上帝、法律等）命令；判定

参考例句：

• He was ordained in 1984. 他在一九八四年被任命为牧师。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He was ordained priest. 他被任命为牧师。 来自辞典例句

16 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

17 adroitness   

参考例句：

• He showed similar adroitness and persistence in strategic arm control. 在战略武器方面，他显示出了同样的机敏和执著。 来自辞典例句
• He turned his large car with some adroitness and drove away. 他熟练地把他那辆大车子调了个头，开走了。 来自辞典例句

18 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

19 deference   

n.尊重，顺从；敬意

参考例句：

• Do you treat your parents and teachers with deference?你对父母师长尊敬吗？
• The major defect of their work was deference to authority.他们的主要缺陷是趋从权威。

20 royalty   

n.皇家，皇族

参考例句：

• She claims to be descended from royalty.她声称她是皇室后裔。
• I waited on tables，and even catered to royalty at the Royal Albert Hall.我做过服务生， 甚至在皇家阿伯特大厅侍奉过皇室的人。

21 superstitious   

adj.迷信的

参考例句：

• They aim to deliver the people who are in bondage to superstitious belief.他们的目的在于解脱那些受迷信束缚的人。
• These superstitious practices should be abolished as soon as possible.这些迷信做法应尽早取消。

22 conceal   

v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽

参考例句：

• He had to conceal his identity to escape the police.为了躲避警方，他只好隐瞒身份。
• He could hardly conceal his joy at his departure.他几乎掩饰不住临行时的喜悦。

23 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

24 pertaining   

与…有关系的，附属…的，为…固有的(to)

参考例句：

• Living conditions are vastly different from those pertaining in their country of origin. 生活条件与他们祖国大不相同。
• The inspector was interested in everything pertaining to the school. 视察员对有关学校的一切都感兴趣。

25 abrogated   

废除（法律等）( abrogate的过去式和过去分词 )； 取消； 去掉； 抛开

参考例句：

• The president abrogated an old law. 总统废除了一项旧法令。
• This law has been abrogated. 这项法令今已取消。

26 embryos   

n.晶胚；胚，胚胎( embryo的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Somatic cells of angiosperms enter a regenerative phase and behave like embryos. 被子植物体细胞进入一个生殖阶段，而且其行为象胚。 来自辞典例句
• Evolution can explain why human embryos look like gilled fishes. 进化论能够解释为什么人类的胚胎看起来象除去了内脏的鱼一样。 来自辞典例句

27 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

28 speculative   

adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的

参考例句：

• Much of our information is speculative.我们的许多信息是带推测性的。
• The report is highly speculative and should be ignored.那个报道推测的成分很大，不应理会。

29 maternal   

adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的

参考例句：

• He is my maternal uncle.他是我舅舅。
• The sight of the hopeless little boy aroused her maternal instincts.那个绝望的小男孩的模样唤起了她的母性。

30 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

31 entrench   

v.使根深蒂固；n.壕沟；防御设施

参考例句：

• A series of measures were designed to entrench democracy and the rule of law.采取一系列措施旨在巩固民主和法制。
• These dictators have entrenched themselves politically and are difficult to move.这些独裁者在政治上已经站稳了脚跟，很难推翻他们。

32 prerogatives   

n.权利( prerogative的名词复数 )；特权；大主教法庭；总督委任组成的法庭

参考例句：

• The tsar protected his personal prerogatives. 沙皇维护了自己的私人特权。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Congressmen may be reluctant to vote for legislation that infringes the traditional prerogatives of the states. 美国国会议员可能不情愿投票拥护侵犯各州传统特权的立法。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

33 marvel   

vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事

参考例句：

• The robot is a marvel of modern engineering.机器人是现代工程技术的奇迹。
• The operation was a marvel of medical skill.这次手术是医术上的一个奇迹。

34 ingenuity   

n.别出心裁；善于发明创造

参考例句：

• The boy showed ingenuity in making toys.那个小男孩做玩具很有创造力。
• I admire your ingenuity and perseverance.我钦佩你的别出心裁和毅力。

35 middle-aged   

adj.中年的

参考例句：

• I noticed two middle-aged passengers.我注意到两个中年乘客。
• The new skin balm was welcome by middle-aged women.这种新护肤香膏受到了中年妇女的欢迎。

36 propitiate   

v.慰解，劝解

参考例句：

• They offer a sacrifice to propitiate the god.他们供奉祭品以慰诸神。
• I tried to propitiate gods and to dispel demons.我试著取悦神只，驱赶恶魔。

37 gulp   

vt.吞咽，大口地吸（气）；vi.哽住；n.吞咽

参考例句：

• She took down the tablets in one gulp.她把那些药片一口吞了下去。
• Don't gulp your food,chew it before you swallow it.吃东西不要狼吞虎咽，要嚼碎了再咽下去。

38 celestial   

adj.天体的；天上的

参考例句：

• The rosy light yet beamed like a celestial dawn.玫瑰色的红光依然象天上的朝霞一样绚丽。
• Gravity governs the motions of celestial bodies.万有引力控制着天体的运动。

39 testimony   

n.证词；见证，证明

参考例句：

• The testimony given by him is dubious.他所作的证据是可疑的。
• He was called in to bear testimony to what the police officer said.他被传入为警官所说的话作证。

40 astuteness   

n.敏锐；精明；机敏

参考例句：

• His pleasant, somewhat ordinary face suggested amiability rather than astuteness. 他那讨人喜欢而近乎平庸的脸显得和蔼有余而机敏不足。 来自互联网
• Young Singaporeans seem to lack the astuteness and dynamism that they possess. 本地的一般年轻人似乎就缺少了那份机灵和朝气。 来自互联网

41 secretion   

n.分泌

参考例句：

• Is there much secretion from your eyes?你眼里的分泌物多吗？
• In addition,excessive secretion of oil,water scarcity are also major factors.除此之外，油脂分泌过盛、缺水也都是主要因素。

42 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

43 pollen   

n.[植]花粉

参考例句：

• Hummingbirds have discovered that nectar and pollen are very nutritious.蜂鸟发现花蜜和花粉是很有营养的。
• He developed an allergy to pollen.他对花粉过敏。

44 industriously   

参考例句：

• She paces the whole class in studying English industriously. 她在刻苦学习英语上给全班同学树立了榜样。
• He industriously engages in unostentatious hard work. 他勤勤恳恳，埋头苦干。

45 virtues   

美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处

参考例句：

• Doctors often extol the virtues of eating less fat. 医生常常宣扬少吃脂肪的好处。
• She delivered a homily on the virtues of family life. 她进行了一场家庭生活美德方面的说教。

46 superfluous   

adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的

参考例句：

• She fined away superfluous matter in the design. 她删去了这图案中多余的东西。
• That request seemed superfluous when I wrote it.我这样写的时候觉得这个请求似乎是多此一举。

47 curiously   

adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地

参考例句：

• He looked curiously at the people.他好奇地看着那些人。
• He took long stealthy strides. His hands were curiously cold.他迈着悄没声息的大步。他的双手出奇地冷。

48 embodies   

v.表现( embody的第三人称单数 )；象征；包括；包含

参考例句：

• The new treaty embodies the aspirations of most nonaligned countries. 新条约体现了大多数不结盟国家的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This document embodies the concern of the government for the deformity. 这个文件体现了政府对残疾人的关怀。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

49 repletion   

n.充满，吃饱

参考例句：

• It is better to die of repletion than to endure hunger.饱死胜过挨饿。
• A baby vomits milk from repletion.婴儿吃饱会吐奶。

50 populous   

adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的

参考例句：

• London is the most populous area of Britain.伦敦是英国人口最稠密的地区。
• China is the most populous developing country in the world.中国是世界上人口最多的发展中国家。