AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL WAGNER, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



AT TWO DOLLARS PER ANNUM, PAYABLE IN ADVANCE. 



Vol. VIII. 



AUGUST, 1STS. 



No. 2. 



[Translated for the American Bee Journal.] 



Unedited Letters of Huber. 



Memoir on the substances which serve for the 

 nutriment of bees and on those which are of use 

 in the structure of their dwellings. (1) 



Sir, 1 do not pretend to give you advice, but in 

 return for the confidence you so kindly repose in 

 me, I will narrate to you two observations which 

 I have made since my letters were published. (2) 



Maybe you will think as I do, that they are not 

 without interest, and that it is not to be won- 

 dered at that the economical science of beekeep- 

 ing is yet in its infancy ; seeing that to-day that 

 which is most important to know is still un- 

 known. 



Distracted by other inquiries, I had given no 

 attention whatever to the various matters which 

 are a source of nourishment to bees, or which 

 enter into the formation of their comb. I thought, 

 as did Reaumur and all naturalists who have fol- 

 lowed him, that the fertilizing powders of flowers 

 were the primary substance of wax, and that 

 the honey served only for the nourishment of the 

 colony. It was not until 1793 that I began to 

 doubt the truth of these two propositions ; 

 although they seemed sanctified by time and the 

 testimony of naturalists, both ancient and 

 modern, still I thought I might take the liberty 

 to examine them, and here ai - e the experiments 

 which seemed to me the best suited to throw light 

 on the whole matter. 



On June 28th, 1793, I transferred a 'swarm 

 from a glazed hive into an empty basket-hive, 

 and gave them from 5 to 6 ounces (150 to 180 

 grains) of honey in a cup. I put into another a 

 wet sponge, and shut them up in such a manner 

 that only air could get to them. 



That year the months of May and June had 

 been rainy and cold. For several days the bees 

 on which I was trying this experiment, had not 

 left the hive, and consequently had not gathered 

 anything. Therefore they had no pollen at all 



(1.) The manuscript does not bear this heading, 

 but the title we have here given corresponds with the 

 matters observed by Huber. — (Hamet.) 



(3.) The first publication of Huber dates back to 

 1798. It is entitled : Nouvelles Observations sur les 

 Abeilles, addressees a M. Charles Bonnet, Geneve, 1 

 vol. in 8vo. 



on their hair or on their thighs, and as that mat- 

 ter must needs be excluded, I thought this 

 moment favorable for an experiment, which I 

 wished to make with all the exactness of which 

 it was capable. 



The first of July the temperature had changed 

 considerably ; it was exceedingly warm. I could 

 not see what was going on within my hive, 

 but its opaque sides did not prevent me from 

 hearing very distinctly the noise or cracking- 

 sound, which bees make when they are con- 

 structing comb. You can imagine my impa- 

 tience, but I had sentenced the creatures to five 

 days' imprisonment, and I would not free them 

 one minute sooner than that ; so that it was not 

 till July 3d, that I determined, not without some 

 fears, to lift up the hive and see if my conjec- 

 tures had any reality. 



First of all I saw that all my honey had dis- 

 appeared, and I had still greater pleasure in dis- 

 covering large pieces of comb of the most beau- 

 tiful wax, placed and made with regularity by 

 the prisoner bees. I might already have con- 

 cluded, from this observation, that this comb 

 had been made from the honey which I had 

 given the bees when I imprisoned them ; but yet 

 there was one doubt in my mind. I was certain 

 that the bees had brought no pollen on their hair 

 into the empty prison-hive, but there was a good 

 supply of it in the cells of the glazed hive which 

 they had formerly inhabited : so that it was pos- 

 sible that they had eaten some of it the 28th of 

 June, the day when I began my experiment, and 

 that this matter elaborated in their stomach, 

 had furnished them with the elements of the 

 wax which formed the combs they made during 

 their imprisonment. To remove this doubt from 

 my mind, another experiment was needed, and 

 here it is. 



The hive had been opened and looked at in a 

 room, the windows of which were securely shut ; 

 therefore, no bee could have gone to the fields. 

 Attracted by the light they had clustered in a 

 bunch in front of one of the panes of the window. 

 I shook the hive over a table, and thus the bees 

 which remained upon the comb, and also the 

 queen, were forced to abandon it, and joined 

 their companions. I was then able to detach all 

 the combs ; they contained but little honey and 

 no fertilizing powder at all. I did not leave an 

 atoni of wax in the interior of this hive. I 



