94 EFFECTS OF RETARDED IMPREGNATION. 



The deeper, however, that we investigate the miraculous 

 effects of retarded impregnation, the more profoundly are we 

 struck with wonder at the incalculable extent of the inventive 

 powers of Huber, as well as at the unfathomable credulity 

 of those, who can lend their sanction to such a series of 

 palpable fictions. If Huber had gone no further towards 

 the accomplishment of the complete disorganization of the 

 interior economy of a hive, than what is contained in his 

 account of the drone eggs, when laid by the queen in her 

 unnatural state of a retarded impregnation, he would have 

 done quite sufficient to show us, that it is one of the greatest 

 calamities which can befal a hive ; but the effects of that dire 

 event fall not only on the drone eggs, but we are gravely 

 told that not a single egg of the workers ever comes to light; 

 their vitality has been destroyed by some vitiation which has 

 taken place, and the cause of which, Huber justly says, has 

 not yet been discovered, — and we may add, never will ; for 

 how can that be discovered, which has no existence at all ? 

 To sum up the whole : — the protracted maturity of the drone 

 eggs, and the vitiation of the eggs of the workers, as being the 

 results of a retarded impregnation, may amuse the credulous, 

 and with some minds exalt the fame of the discoverer of 

 such a wonderful trait in the natural character of the queen 

 bee ; but, in regard to actual truth, they both stand upon the 

 same basis. Fiction was its architect, and the superstruc- 

 ture completed by ignorance. Correctly did Mr. Latreille 

 speak, when he said, " Je regarde V impregnation retardee 

 d'Huber, comme une de ses illusions infortunees, et qu'on 

 ne doit jamais le recevoir dans Vhistoire naturelle des 

 abeilles." 



