August, 1921 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



501 



to a famous doctor in Paris who ordered 

 him to the country. Near Paris is the quaint 

 little village of Santi, and here the boy 

 Huber ploughed and sowed and milked and 

 lived the life of an ordinary peasant lad. 

 His youthful strength rebounded swiftly 

 and he returned to the city with vigor com- 

 pletely restored. But there another doctor, 

 a celebrated oculist, broke to them the sol- 

 emn news that his eyesight could not be 

 saved. Slowly but surely he was to become 

 totally blind. One eye had the same disease 

 that had "quenched the orbs" of Milton — 

 amaurosis; the other had cataract, which 

 the doctors were unable to cure. Francois 

 and his father went back to Geneva. And 

 the boy went bravely on. 



The childish love between Francois and 

 Marie was deepening with the years, and 

 now his only fear was that his affliction 

 might alienate her. So he constantly mini- 

 mized its seriousness, ever to himself, 

 scarcely admitting its steady desolating de- 

 velopment. He talked always as tho he 

 could see perfectly, and so formed the habit, 

 later carried so noticeably into his writings, 

 of speaking about seeing with perfect clear- 

 ness what he saw only with the inner eye — 

 altho there certainly with perfect clearness. 

 But he need not have worried about Marie. 

 Her affection was so deeply rooted that not 

 even her father's bitter opposition, which 

 at times amounted to persecution, could 

 turn her from this great-souled young man 

 who was so soon to pass into complete outer 

 darkness, but who held so bravely and 

 steadily to the stronger light within. As 

 soon as she reached her majority she mar- 

 ried him, shortly before he became to- 

 tally blind. The tender devotion that 

 brought her to that shadowed altar made 

 beautiful 40 years of married life. She was 

 at different times her husband's reader, his 

 secretary, his observer; and was always 

 closely absorbed in the work that absorbed 

 his attention. When he was an old man he 

 once said, "As long as she lived I was not 

 sensible of the misfortune of being blind." 



Another close personal association came 

 to Huber thru Francois Burneus, whom he 

 first employed as a servant. Soon, however, 

 the keen inner sight of the master had dis- 

 covered in the man those rare talents that 

 make the skillful observer. So Burneus be- 

 came his invaluable and highly trained as- 

 sistant in working out his one life purpose, 

 research into the life and habits of the hon- 

 eybee, displaying remarkable patience and 

 skill thru countless experiments and under 

 literally thousands of questions, by which 

 Huber guided, directed, sifted, and tested 

 his efforts. In one experiment to learn 

 something about laying workers, Burneus 

 caught one by one every bee in two hives 

 which were suspected of having laying 

 workers. Tliis required 11 days of steady 

 work, during which time he stopped only 

 long enough to rest his eyes (the pathos of 

 the master 'g insistence upon this!). Huber 



gave public testimony to his worth, insist- 

 ing upon sharing his own honors with one 

 who ' ' counted pain and fatigue nothing 

 compared with the great desire he felt to 

 know the result." 



The results of Huber 's observations and 

 his long extensive investigations were writ- 

 ten as letters to his famous naturalist 

 friend, Bonnet, whose own sight was failing 

 so that he had given up his active scientific 

 investigations and was devoting his later 

 years to philosophy. When these letters ap- 

 peared later in book form as "New Obser- 

 vations on the Honeybee," some scholars at 

 first raised mental eyebrows and smiled 

 doubtfully at observations conducted by a 

 blind man assisted by a peasant. But that 

 attitude could not last. Scientists are nec- 

 essarily just and honest, and these swiftly 

 threw aside their first prejudice and ac- 

 corded to Huber 's book the great place it 

 still holds after the passing of all these 

 years. 



He wrote in a wonderfully lucid style 

 with lively picturesqueness — clearness of 

 phrase growing out of clearness of vision, 

 inner vision. His work is marvelous in its 

 accuracy and fullness. Boundless patience 

 and infinite skill unearthed hidden truths 

 for him that had been searched for in vain 

 for generations, from the seekers of ancient 

 days on down to his own eminent friend 

 Bonnet. 



He built the first observation hives^ — one 

 for a single comb and others for several 

 combs, opening like books with hinged 

 leaves, each leaf containing a comb. Among 

 his important discoveries are the fertiliza- 

 tion of queens in the air, the development 

 of the eggs of an unmated queen into 

 drones, the rivalry of queens, the origin of 

 propolis, the origin of wax, the ventilation 

 of the hive, and facts about the antennae 

 and laying workers and swarming and dif- 

 ferent senses. 



Huber 's mind was strong and active. Like 

 his father, he loved music. He had mas- 

 tered counterpoint, and could build the har- 

 monies of a musical composition when the 

 bass was dictated to him. After one repe- 

 tition it was his own. He invented a print- 

 ing machine on which he corresponded with 

 his friends. He loved to walk in the open 

 air, and arranged to have knotted cords 

 strung along the rural walks around his 

 home, so that he could follow these paths 

 without other assistance, and know his 

 whereabouts by the knots. 



While he had every advantage that in- 

 genuity and wealth could bring, coupled 

 with the tenderest devotion and quickest 

 sympathy with his work, all of which helped 

 to bring light into the dark days, yet the 

 real source of his serenity lay in his own 

 strong unshrinking soul. To old age he re- 

 tained a deep affection for his friends, boy- 

 ish ardor, steady delight in nature, noble 

 enthusiasm, and that sure sympathy for 

 youth which keeps age young. His mental 

 (Continued on page 524.) 



