THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



63 



soon as she had attaincil the age which she im- 

 agined gave her a right to decide for herself, 

 she, after refusing several brilliant offers, united 

 her fate -with that of Huber. The union was a 

 happy one. Their mutual good conduct soon 

 brought about the pardon of their disobedience. 

 In the affection and society of his amiable and 

 generous-minded wife, the blind man felt no 

 want; slie was "eyes to the blind" — "his reader 

 — his secretary and observer" — a sharer in his 

 enthusiasm on the subject of natural science; 

 and an able assistant in his experiments. She 

 was spared to him forty years. "As long as 

 she lived," said he in his old age, "I was not 

 sensible of the misfortune of being blind." The 

 last years of his life were soothed by the affec- 

 tionate attentions of his married daughter, Ma- 

 dame de Molin, whose residence was at Lau- 

 sanne, and to which place he had removed. 



It Avas about this period that he learned the 

 existence in Mexico of bees without stings; and 

 he was, by the kind exertions of a friend, soon 

 after gratified with the present of a hive of that 

 species. To him, whose life had been almost 

 exclusively devoted to the study and admiration 

 of these insects, we may conceive how great a 

 source of enjoyment this gift must have proved. 

 His feeling toward his bees was not a feeling of 

 fondness in an ordinary degree; it was a pas- 

 sion, as it almost invariably becomes with every 

 one who makes it his study. 



The days of Huber were now drawing to a 

 close. In the full possession of his mental fac- 

 ulties, he was able to converse with his friends 

 with his accustomed ease and tranquility, and 

 even to correspond by letters with those at a 

 distance, within two days of his death. He 

 died in the arms of his daughter on the 22d of 

 December, 1831, in the eighty -first years of his 

 age. — W. Dunbar. 



The Senses of Bees. 



By a law of nature from which bees seldom 

 deviate; the foundation of the second comb is 

 laid parallel to the first, and the succeeding 

 combs are generally parallel to each other. 

 There is usually an interval of a little more 

 than a third of an inch between the range of 

 comb, and this for substantial reasons. Weire 

 they too distant, it is evident that the bees would 

 be greatly dispersed, and unable to communi- 

 cate their heat, reciprocally, whence the brood 

 would not receive sufiicient warmth. Were the 

 combs too close, on the contrary, the bees could 

 not freely traverse the interspace, and the work 

 of the hive would suffer. 



Pollen, or bee bread, as it was formerly called, 

 is collected by the bees mainly for the purpose 

 of feeding their young brood. It contains none 

 of the elementary principles of wax; and the 

 prevalent notion that wax is made of it, is en- 

 tirely unfounded and erroneous. 



Nothing is more offensive to bees than the 

 human breath, You may gently fan them., or 

 blow upon them with a bellows, without of- 

 fence; but breathing on them excites their rage 

 instantly. 



Much uncertainty has prevailed on the subject 

 of the senses possessed by the honeybee; not 

 so much, perhaps, in regard to the existence as 

 to the locality of the organs. Most naturalists 

 admit their possession of five senses, analogous 

 to those of men, though the celebrated Huber 

 seems to have some doubt as to the existence 

 of the faculty of hearing in bees, at least with- 

 out some important modifications. Greater di- 

 versity of opinion, however, prevails as to the 

 situation of those organs by which the impres- 

 sions of sight, touch, taste, sound, and smell 

 are produced on their sensations ; and many cu- 

 rious experiments by different naturalists have 

 been made with a view to ascertain the truth, 

 but which have not always led to the same re- 

 sults. In researches so minute, it is perhaps 

 vain to look for perfect accuracy in our conclu- 

 sions, and we must be satisfied with anything 

 like reasonable approximation to the truth. 



Sight. — In the anatomical structure of the 

 head of the bee, besides the reticulated eyes 

 placed, as in other animals, on the sides of the 

 head, this insect possesses three stemmata or 

 coronetted eyes, arranged triangularly on its 

 centre between the antennse. That these little 

 specks are, in reality, organs of vision, has been 

 made apparent from accurate experiments, in 

 which, Avhen the reticulated eyes were blind- 

 folded, the insect was evidently not depriv- 

 ed of its sight, though the direction of its 

 flight, being vertical, seemed to prove that the 

 stemmata were adapted only or chiefly for up- 

 ward vision. This additional organ must doubt- 

 less add considerably to its power of sight, 

 though, probably, its aid may be confined chiefly 

 to the obscure recesses of the hive. As the in- 

 ternal operations of the insect in the honey sea- 

 son are carried on during the night as well as 

 the day, the coronet eyes may, as Reaumur con- 

 jectures, serve to it the purpose of a microscope. 

 As to the general power of vision in a bee, its 

 organs appear better adapted to distant objects 

 than to such as are close at hand. Wheu re- 

 turning loaded from the fields, it flies with un- 

 erring certainty, and distinguishes at once its 

 own domicile in the midst of a crowded apiary. 

 Yet any person who has at all made this insect 

 the subject of observation, must have seen it 

 often at a loss, in returning to its hive, to find 

 the entrance, especially if its habitation has 

 been shifted ever so little from its former sta- 

 tion; nay, if without moving the hive the en- 

 trance has been turned round a single inch from 

 its former position, the bee flies with unerring 

 precision to that point on the alighting board 

 where the door formerly stood, and frequently, 

 after many fruitless attempts to find the en- 

 trance, it is forced to rise again into the air, 

 with a view, we may suppose, of removing to 

 such a distance from the desired object as is 

 suited to the properties or focus of its visual 

 organ. We are led to conclude, therefore, from 

 these well-known facts, that the eye of the bee 

 has a lengthened focus, and that it must depend 

 on the aid of other organs in those operations 



