204 REVERIES OF HUBER. 



in due form to the community at large, her majesty was 

 received with all becoming homage and veneration. She 

 was invigorated by a dose of royal jelly, and formally in- 

 stalled into all the dignities of her station ! ! 



These reveries and fancies of " the prince of apiarians" 

 may be amusing ; but to those who seek for instruction, they 

 are worse than useless, for they mislead the uninitiated into 

 a field of romance and fiction, in which they may delight to 

 roam, impelled by a love of novelty and originality, but 

 from which they eventually return, their minds surcharged 

 with prejudice and error, and rendered almost impervious to 

 the light of truth. The same remark which Huber makes, 

 when speaking of the discoveries of Schirach and Riem, 

 namely, that he cannot comprehend by what means they 

 were able to make their observations, may with the strictest 

 propriety be applied to himself; for it must be evident to 

 every one, who possesses the slightest knowledge of the 

 interior construction of a hive, that Huber has asserted, as 

 having often witnessed many things, which it is actually 

 physically impossible that he ever could see. We defy 

 Kirby and Spence, we defy Mr. Rennie, and we defy the 

 whole host of Huberians, to prove to us satisfactorily even 

 the possibility of witnessing the pretended discoveries of 

 Huber. The very make, position, and construction of 

 the combs, present an insuperable obstacle to a successful 

 research ; and although some little insight may be gained 

 of the interior economy of the hive by means of the mirror 

 hive, yet even with that advantage, on account of the uniform 

 aversion which the bees always manifest from continuing 

 their labours on the admission of light, and more especially 

 in every case in which the motions of the queen bee are 

 concerned, it amounts almost to a direct impossibility to 

 penetrate into the mysteries of their economy : and it may 

 with the greatest confidence be asserted, that there is not 

 perhaps any object in animal nature, which has hitherto 



