On the Threshold of the Hive 
suffering and human triumph there is nothing 
more touching, no lesson more admirable, 
than the story of this patient collaboration, 
wherein the one who saw only with im- 
material light guided with his spirit the 
eyes and hands of the other who had the 
real earthly vision; where he, who, as we 
are assured, had never with his own eyes 
beheld a comb of honey, was yet able, not- 
withstanding the veil on his dead eyes that 
rendered double the veil in which nature 
enwraps all things, to penetrate the pro- 
found secrets of the genius that had made 
this invisible comb—as though to teach us 
that no condition in life can warrant our 
abandoning our desire and search for the 
truth. I will not enumerate all that apia- 
rian science owes to Huber; to state what 
it does not owe were the briefer task. His 
‘* New Observations on Bees,” of which the 
first volume was written in 1789, in the 
form of letters to Charles Bonnet, the second 
not appearing till twenty years later, have 
remained the unfailing, abundant treasure- 
house into which every subsequent writer 
has dipped. And though a few mistakes 
Il 
