Call no.: SF523 .T5 1744
Reverend John Thorley’s Melisselogia. Or, The Female Monarchy (London, 1744) is typical of the Scriptural science of the 18th century, describing bees as wondrous examples of God’s work on earth and treating beekeeping as a means of discovering the hand of God in nature.
Throughout his work, Thorley praises bees for their diligence, loyalty, and purity, and like Rusden and many others before him, he describes the hive as a monarchy with the Queen as sovereign and the rest as her servants. Although he disclaims any pretensions to extensive scientific knowledge and he liberally cites authors such as Warder, Thorley provides his readers with new techniques for successful hive management, paying particular attention to the harvest of honey without exterminating the colony..
