12 MINER S AMERICAN 



credence ; but he trusted entirely to his servant, in all 

 those alleged discoveries that have astonished and 

 amazed the world. 



I can give but a faint credence to discoveries thus 

 verified, so far as the authority is concerned ; but where 

 Ruber's statements tally with well known principles, we 

 should give him the benefit of our confidence in his as- 

 sertions. 



The reader may be interested to know what wonder- 

 ful discoveries this man has made ? They consist in 

 discoveries relative to the impregnation of the queen, — 

 retarded impregnation and its eflTects — verification of 

 the existence of fertile workers — the power of the bees 

 in raising a queen from any ordinary worker's egg at 

 pleasure — combats of rival queens — massacre of drones, 

 &c., &c., interwoven, as many apiarians presume, with 

 considerable fiction, since many things which he alleges 

 to have seen, or rather that his servant saw, have never 

 been beheld by any one else. 



huish's opinion op hubek. 



Huish, a writer of some celebrity on bees, whose 

 v/ork was published in London, in 1844, says, " Huber, 

 from a natural infirmity of the eyes, was wholly disabled 

 from prosecuting his researches into the natural economy 

 of the bee, and consequently that he relig^ solely on the 

 skill and information of his servant, Franpois Beurnen's, 

 for the veracity of those singular discoveries, which, 



