There is much difficulty about the generation of bees.If it is really true that in the case of some fishes there is such a method of generation that they produce eggs without copulation, this may well happen also with bees, to judge from appearances.For they must (1)either bring the young brood from elsewhere, as some say, and if so the young must either be spontaneously generated or produced by some other animal, or (2) they must generate them themselves, or (3) they must bring some and generate others, for this also is maintained by some, who say that they bring the young of the drones only.Again, if they generate them it must be either with or without copulation; if the former, then either (1) each kind must generate its own kind, or (2) some one kind must generate the others, or (3) one kind must unite with another for the purpose (I mean for instance (1) that bees may be generated from the union of bees, drones from that of drones, and kings from that of kings, or (2) that all the others may be generated from one, as from what are called kings and leaders, or (3) from the union of drones and bees, for some say that the former are male, the latter female, while others say that the bees are male and the drones female).But all these views are impossible if we reason first upon the facts peculiar to bees and secondly upon those which apply more generally to other animals also.
For if they do not generate the young but bring them from elsewhere, then bees ought to come into being also, if the bees did not carry them off, in the places from which the old bees carry the germs.For why, if new bees come into existence when the germs are transported, should they not do so if the germs are left there? They ought to do so just as much, whether the germs are spontaneously generated in the flowers or whether some animal generates them.And if the germs were of some other animal, then that animal ought to be produced from them instead of bees.Again, that they should collect honey is reasonable, for it is their food, but it is strange that they should collect the young if they are neither their own offspring nor food.
With what object should they do so? for all animals that trouble themselves about the young labour for what appears to be their own offspring.
But, again, it is also unreasonable to suppose that the bees are female and the drones male, for Nature does not give weapons for fighting to any female, and while the drones are stingless all the bees have a sting.Nor is the opposite view reasonable, that the bees are male and the drones female, for no males are in the habit of working for their offspring, but as it is the bees do this.And generally, since the brood of the drones is found coming into being among them even if there is no mature drone present, but that of the bees is not so found without the presence of the kings (which is why some say that the young of the drones alone is brought in from outside), it is plain that they are not produced from copulation, either (1) of bee with bee or drone with drone or (2) of bees with drones.(That they should import the brood of the drones alone is impossible for the reasons already given, and besides it is unreasonable that a similar state of things should not prevail with all the three kinds if it prevails with one.) Then, again, it is also impossible that the bees themselves should be some of them male and some female, for in all kinds of animals the two sexes differ.Besides they would in that case generate their own kind, but as it is their brood is not found to come into being if the leaders are not among them, as men say.And an argument against both theories, that the young are generated by union of the bees with one another or with the drones, separately or with one another, is this: none of them has ever yet been seen copulating, whereas this would have often happened if the sexes had existed in them.It remains then, if they are generated by copulation at all, that the kings shall unite to generate them.But the drones are found to come into being even if no leaders are present, and it is not possible that the bees should either import their brood or themselves generate them by copulation.
It remains then, as appears to be the case in certain fishes, that the bees should generate the drones without copulation, being indeed female in respect of generative power, but containing in themselves both sexes as plants do.Hence also they have the instrument of offence, for we ought not to call that female in which the male sex is not separated.But if this is found to be the case with drones, if they come into being without copulation, then as it is necessary that the same account should be given of the bees and the kings and that they also should be generated without copulation.Now if the brood of the bees had been found to come into being among them without the presence of the kings, it would necessarily follow that the bees also are produced from bees themselves without copulation, but as it is, since those occupied with the tendance of these creatures deny this, it remains that the kings must generate both their own kind and the bees.