bee-keeper's manual. 11 



facts, to enable us to meet with perfect success in our 

 management of bees — the curtain has been raised, and 

 man has beheld — enough for man to know. 



As the wisdom of God is past finding out, so is the 

 instinctive wisdom of the little bee, a direct attribute of 

 the Architect and Creator of all animate and inanimate 

 nature, beyond the pale of human knowledge. 



huber's authority doubted. 



As it will be necessary for me in the following work, 

 to frequently allude to Huber and his writings, since the 

 history of the bee is based, to a great extent, upon the 

 foundation laid by him, the reader will excuse a continu- 

 ation of remarks touching the confidence due to his 

 statements. His writings comprise simply a series of 

 letters to his friend and patron, Bonnet, of Geneva. 

 Bonnet's reputation as a naturalist stands high, and 

 those letters were written at his suggestion of various 

 things pertaining to bees, then in obscurity, and which, 

 for the benefit of science, it was necessary to unfold. 

 Huber being in affluent circumstances, and unable to 

 attend to any ordinary pursuits, in consequence of his 

 blindness, he being unable to discover the difference be- 

 tween a white person and a colored one, he, with the 

 aid of a servant, instituted his experiments in the econ- 

 omy of bees, to avoid that tedium vitee that ever accom- 

 panies the unemployed. 



Now, had Huber had personal ocular demonstration 

 of what he has written, as being verified by him, 

 through his assistant, we might consider him entitled to 



