10 MINERS AMERICAN 



ed, and Huber was forthwith placed upon the pinnacle of 

 apiarian science. 



Many apiarians who subsequently wrote upon the bee, 

 servilely followed him through both truth and fallacy, 

 without being able, from their own experience, to either 

 refute or corroborate his theories and hypotheses. En- 

 cyclopcedias and other publications cited him as unex- 

 ceptionable authority, and he was styled the " Prince of 

 Apiarians;" hence we find American authors taking 

 their cue from some foreign proselyte to his theories, 

 and blindly re-echoing many of his discoveries as facts, 

 which may be as far from the truth, as the east is from 

 the west ! 



The reader may here inquire, if the natural history 

 and domestic economy of the honey bee, is so involved 

 in mystery and obscurity, as not to be fully understood 

 at this late day, and susceptible of being clearly ex- 

 pounded and laid down, without the possibility of error ? 

 Yes sir, it is thus involved; and the day will never 

 come, when the veil of obscurity that now shrouds much 

 pertaining to this interesting little insect will be wholly 

 removed. 



Man may experiment — he may send forth theory and 

 hypothesis to the end of time ; yet the natural instinct 

 and wisdom of the bee, in many of her acts, and the 

 modus operandi of her internal domestic labors, to a 

 great extent, will forever be terra incognita to all hu- 

 man knowledge ! 



Let not the reader suppose from the above remarks, 

 that we are doomed to remain ignorant of important 



