HIVES APPLICABLE TO WARMING APARTMENTS. 325 



of bees are all that may be required to diffuse a comfortable 

 heat over the apartment, and, at the same time, the process 

 is so very easy of execution. According to Huber, about 

 twenty hives are sufficient to heat an apartment, and about 

 twenty-five, a greenhouse. In the preceding quotation, he 

 informs us, that the bees are free from torpor ; but we are 

 subsequently informed that during the winter, they are in 

 a greater or less degree of torpidity, in which condition no 

 caloric whatever is emitted, a piece of information rather 

 superfluous on the part of Mr. Huber. The first step, 

 however, to be taken on the requisition of heat in the apart- 

 ment, is to rouse them from their state of torpidity, by 

 agitating and shaking them most violently, and turning 

 them over and over like so many beans in a bushel measure. 

 This most unexpected motion will rouse them from their 

 lethargy, and they will be immediately seized with a most 

 voracious appetite, which they must be allowed to gratify 

 to its full extent, for it is only when the bees are gorged 

 with honey, that the calorific power can be set in motion. 

 The bees having satiated themselves with food are again to 

 be well shaken, when the caloric will immediately exude 

 from their bodies, and the desired heat will be diffused over 

 the apartment ! ! ! 



And yet the discoverer of this wonderful property in the 

 bee is Huber, the celebrated Huber, whose authority in all 

 matters relative to the natural histoiy of the bee is held 

 paramount to every other ; but who, we assert without fear 

 of contradiction, has introduced into it a greater number of 

 the most extravagant fictions, and the most absurd descrip- 

 tions, than any other author, not even excepting Butler, who 

 ever wrote upon the subject. 



The late Mr. Bagster, speaking of this and other discove- 

 ries of Huber, says, " All this you will think at first sight 

 so improbable and next to impossible, that you will require 

 the strongest and most irrefragable evidence before you 

 p 3 



