FAILURE OF BONNEr's EXPERIMENTS. 147 



Huber and Feburier, who admit that, without the germ of 

 such ovary being extant in the common bee, it cannot be- 

 come a queen ? To conclude this most interesting portion 

 of the natural history of the bee, we are fully prepared to 

 admit that numerous authorities are to be found of great 

 weight and consideration, which appear to place the existence 

 of the power of the common bee to generate a queen, on the 

 most indisputable grounds ; but, on the other hand, during a 

 period of above forty years employed in the study of the bee, 

 we never succeeded in a single instance of obtaining a queen 

 manufactured by the bees from a common egg. We have 

 challenged the staunchest adherents of the system to prove to 

 us the verity of it by actual experiment, and not in a single 

 instance has success attended their labours. We allowed 

 Bonner to experimentize on every hive in our apiary, and he 

 commenced his operations with the full persuasion that he 

 should eventually succeed in obtaining a queen. He how- 

 ever failed in every one of his experiments, and he finally 

 discarded from his system the alleged power of the bee to 

 generate a queen from a common egg ; and we reject it alto- 

 gether as fallacious and fanciful, notwithstanding the bold 

 assertion of Mr. Duncan, that no unprejudiced mind can 

 withhold its assent from the truth of it. 



Should, however, Mr. Duncan feel disposed to consult the 

 works of the foreign authors on the natural history of the 

 bee, and particularly on that interesting and important part 

 of it, which treats of the power of the common bee to 

 generate a queen, we refer him to the following, in which he 

 will find that that alleged power is considered as directly 

 visionary, and that the all-powerful royal jelly of Huber, as 

 possessing any of the properties attributed to it, or even its 

 existence at all, is denounced to be a groundless delusion, 

 unworthy of the slightest consideration. 



Observations sur les Abeilles, suivies d'un manuel pratique de 

 la culture des abeilles, (Feuille du Cultivateur). 



