PKBRI'ARV, 1922 



G L E A K T N 'Q S IN REE C U I. T U R E 



fll 



He built, as 1 saiil in August, the first ob- 

 servation hives — one for a single comb and 

 others for several eonibs, opening like books 

 witii hinged leaves, eaeh leaf containing a 

 comb. Among his important discoveries are 

 the impregnation of the (jueen in mid-air, 

 and the fact of one fertilization being suf- 

 ficient; the development of eggs of an un- 

 mated queen into drones; the fact that the 

 queen apparently knows what kind of egg 

 she is about to lay and always deposits it in 

 the right cell (tho he acknowledged and 

 clearly stated a mystery in this matter of 

 eggs and sex — a mystery that later was 

 largely cleared up by Dzierbon's great dis- 

 covery of the parthenogenetic origin of 

 drones); the rivalry of queens; the fact 

 that (|U(>ens can be reared from worker lar- 

 vae; that if bees are given worker cells con- 

 taining worker eggs or larvae, and also con- 

 taining royal jelly, they will never raise 

 those larvae into workers, but into queens — 

 and if queens are not desired, they will de- 

 stroy the worker brood and devour the royal 

 jelly; that eggs are true eggs — the embry- 

 onic development and emergence having 

 been watched; that some workers sometimes 

 become layers; that drone eggs will produce 

 drones even when reared in worker cells — 

 tho they may be small; and that worker 

 eggs will produce workers even when reared 

 in drone cells — and they will not be large. 



He aided in the discovery of ovaries in 

 Avorkers, thus doing away with the age-old 

 idea of neuters. He ascertained that the 

 slaughter of the drones never takes places 

 in a colony lacking a fertile queen, or in one 

 still fostering swarming ambitions. By 

 placing eggs in cells in blown-glass, and thru 

 these walls observing the spinning of co- 

 coons, he concluded that drones and workers 

 spin complete cocoons, while queens spin im- 

 perfect ones, which, enveloping the head and 

 thorax, extend only to the second segment 

 of the abdomen, and inferred that if these 

 cocoons were complete the queens could not 

 destroy rival pupae. He observed that the 

 laying of drone eggs is either coincident 

 with swarming preparations, or precedes 

 them, and established many facts about 

 swarming. He demonstrated by many ex- 

 periments that bees, eggs and larvae all ab- 

 sorb oxygen and give off carbonic acid. In 

 studying the air of the hive in this con- 

 nection, he discovered the fact and the de- 

 tails of systematic ventilation, and the re- 

 newal of air in the hive by wing work. He 

 studied thoroly the Sphinx atropos (death's 

 head moth) and its ravages in the hive. He 

 learned that the odor of the poison of the 

 sting rouses other bees to stinging. He dis- 

 covereil the origin of piopolis. He made ex- 

 tensive studies of the senses of bees, locat- 

 ing the organs of touch in the antennae, and 

 those of smell — which he demonstrated to be 

 very keen — in the mouth (tho this theory 

 seems recently to have been disproved — 

 along with the conflicting claims of many 



otlicr students of these elusive organs;. He 

 failed to establish a sense of hearing, and 

 questioned its existence. He concluded that 

 taste was at least very imperfect. In his 

 study of sight, he discovered that the lenses 

 of the eyes of bees are not adjustable. 



When he was forty-five years old, he lost 

 liis valued assistant, Burnens, who went to 

 another city and accepted an office of some 

 influence. Ruber's later experiments, espe- 

 cially the very extensive ones with wax, 

 were conducted with the assistance of his 

 son Pierre, who became himself a naturalist 

 of note, ])articularly in connection with the 

 study of ants. 



Huber discovered that wax comes from 

 the under side of the abdomen of the work- 

 ers. He also proved it to be produced by the 

 digestion and conversion of honey, tho it 

 had long been supposed to come from the 

 conversion of pollen. He confined one swarm 

 of bees on honey only and another on pollen 

 only. New comb was built in the first hive, 

 and removed, seven times; while none at all 

 was made in the second. But why, then, he 

 promptly wondered, do bees gather pollen? 

 Not for the sustenance of the adult bees, he 

 conclvuled after further study (in which he 

 proved honey to be essential), but for larval 

 food. After close scrutiny he decided that 

 workers swallow pollen and later regurgitate 

 it as food for the larvae. Marked bees were 

 seen to eat pollen, go to the brood and 

 plunge their heads into cells containing lar- 

 vae. After they left, these cells were ex- 

 amined and found to contain a supply of 

 larval food. Another thing that he discov- 

 ered when studying wax, was that flowers 

 do not always contain nectar, as had been 

 supposed — and that nectar secretion is in- 

 fluenced by variations iu atmospheric con- 

 ditions. 



The entire process of comb construction 

 was observed and recorded in all its details. 

 Bees were watched removing wax scales 

 from the under side of the abdomen and 

 passing them forward to the mandibles, 

 whence, later, the plastic and cohesive wax 

 issued and was attached to the top of the 

 hive. One bee alone, he reported, starts the 

 comb-building. When her supply of wax is 

 exhausted, another follows, proceeding the 

 same way, guided by the work of her prede- 

 cessor. When this waxen wall is about one 

 inch long and about two-thirds as high as 

 one cell, they begin excavating it into cells, 

 one on one side, two on the other, the join- 

 ing of the two being exactly opposite the 

 center of the one. Only these first cells, 

 however, are so excavated, all the others 

 being built in their regular cell form. He 

 claimed, too, that the much-praised exact- 

 ness of the bee is overestimated. 



Huber 's work has been the foundation on 

 which modern investigation has rested. To 

 an astonishing degree modern investigators 

 (not counting Dzierzon) have merely veri- 

 fied the work of the great blind master. 



