14 DISCOVERY OF BONNER. 



ignorant of the subject on which they presumed to teach, as 

 the individuals whom they were appointed to instruct 

 The majority of them were of opinion, that each species in the 

 hive generated their like ; and from this wild hypothesis 

 arose the discovery of Bonner (subsequently promulgated), 

 of the existence of little drones, which he affirms to have 

 discovered amongst the common bees, and to which he 

 awarded the procreating power of the male. It must, never- 

 theless, be confessed, that the merit is due to the German 

 apiarians, of having been the foremost to eradicate many of 

 the ridiculous prejudices, which had crept into the natural 

 history of the bee, and that it is on the basis of their experi- 

 mental discoveries, that the different theories of the English 

 apiarians have been erected. 



We will not hesitate to declare it as our most decided 

 opinion, that the common bees take no share whatever in the 

 procreation of their species ; although they may, by their 

 reciprocal heat contribute greatly to the nourishment of the 

 brood. Huber, however, in the plenitude of his inventive 

 powers, not only establishes the gender of the common bee, 

 but he has even bestowed upon it an ovarium, and on that 

 point we are decidedly at issue. If the common bees be 

 females, according to the hypothesis of Huber, it ought to 

 be considered as an essential point in the natural history of 

 the insect, to ascertain in what manner those pretended 

 females assist in the propagation of their species ? If nature 



* Bushman, the superintendent of the apiaries in the imperial gardens of 

 Vienna, was, in the year 1830, so ignorant of the proper management of the 

 bee, that, acting upon the system of Huber, he instructed his attendants to 

 kill the greater portion of the drones, immediately on their appearance, on the 

 principle that as one drone was sufficient for the fecundation of the queen, the 

 massacre of the remainder was an act of prudence and good management, by 

 ridding the hive of a number of superfluous mouths, who were feeding at the 

 expense of the community. The consequence of this gross mismanagement 

 was the loss of three fourths of the hives, which, as i s generally the case, was 

 attributed to some malignant influence, and not to tho hi„„.* • 



' """• liUL to tne blundering ignorance 

 of the practitioner. 



