INTRODUCTION. 



the inexperienced apiarian with the miraculous rearing 

 of a queen bee in a glass cell, and he may have thrown 

 over his description of it all the varnish of direct ex- 

 perimental knowledge; but the editors of the works 

 above alluded to, instead of disgracing their pages by 

 the admission of such a visionary tale, should boldly 

 and indignantly have declared, that from their own 

 experience in the natural economy of the insect, they 

 were able to pronounce the circumstances as related 

 by Huber to be directly impossible, and the whole of 

 them based on fiction and imposition. 



If we examine the account which Huber gives of his 

 invention of the royal jelly, the existence and efficacy of 

 which are fully acquiesced in by the aforesaid editors, 

 to what other conclusions are we necessarily driven, 

 than that they are the dupes of a visionary enthusiast, 

 whose greatest merit consists in his inventive powers, 

 no matter how destitute those powers may be of all 

 affinity with truth or probability ? Before, however, 

 those editors bestowed their unqualified assent on the 

 existence of this royal jelly, did they stop to put to 

 themselves the following questions ? — By what kind of 

 bee is it made ? Whence is it procured ? Is it a 

 natural or an elaborated substance ? If natural, from 

 what source is it derived ? If elaborated, in what 

 stomach of the bee is it to be found ? How is it ad- 

 ministered ? What are its constituent principles? Is 

 its existence optional or definite ? Whence does it 

 derive its miraculous power of converting a common 

 egg into a royal one ?— Will any of the aforesaid editors 

 publicly answer these questions ? and ought they not to 



