18 huber's discovery of the royal jelly. 



ever, that that inference on our part is rather gratuitous, for 

 Huber subsequently informs us that those workers, who 

 have retained their productive organs, must have had a 

 greater quantity of succulent food administered to them, 

 which acted as a balsam to the pain, and enabled the bee to 

 spring into life, with all its natural powers in full strength 

 and vigour. 



It is, however, but just to give Huber the full benefit of 

 his discoveries ; although we shall distinctly show that the 

 further he proceeds, the deeper he involves himself in con- 

 tradiction and inconsistency. According to his accurate 

 observation, which with many it is heresy to dispute, all the 

 working bees possess ovaries, but all the ovaries do not con- 

 tain eggs. It was necessary, therefore, that he should tax 

 his ingenuity, in order to devise some means or principle, 

 by which eggs may be generated in some of these ovaries, 

 and not in others ; for he distinctly perceived, great as his 

 reliance might be on the credulity of his readers, that if he 

 gave to every worker an ovarium with eggs, the absurdity 

 of the system would be so manifest, that the whole of it 

 would fall to pieces at once. He has, therefore, recourse to 

 the all-powerful panacea of a peculiar liquid, designated by 

 him royal jellv * ; and we are consequently informed, that 

 if the worms of the workers be favoured with a small modi- 

 cum of the jelly, its efficacy is so astounding, that the ovarium 

 becomes instantly capable of generating eggs : which eggs, 

 however, produce nothing but males, but of the manner of 

 their fecundation, Huber very modestly and properly ac- 

 knowledges his ignorance. Still, however, in one ovarium 



* By the French apiarians, this truly wonderful and efficacious liquid is 

 ca led bottillie koyale j considering, however, that it is administered 

 solely m the manufacture of queens, we opined, that royal jelly would be 

 far more becoming and respectful than royal broth ; although, after all the 

 French apiarians may perhaps be in the right, knowing, most probably, the 

 ingredient, of winch it is made, but of which we most candidly confess 

 our entire ignorance. 



