74 TREATISE ON THE 
any preconceived theory or unreasonable 
prejudice, is the cause of that determined 
pettinacity with which the discoveries and 
conclusions of Huber, on this subject, are 
still in some instances rejected. That justly 
celebrated naturalist instituted a set of ex- 
periments on the subject of the queen’s im- 
pregnation, the result of which leads to the 
conclusion that it takes place in the air. 
Though I was once inclined to differ in 
opinion with Huber on the subject, from what 
I have seen in my observatory hive, this 
summer, (1841), I am ‘led to conelude the 
accuracy of that remark. I had a queen, 
which left the hive about the third day of her 
age, as I supposed, for impregnation, but she 
never returned to the hive again, and so left 
it without a queen. I had to supply them 
with a queen from another hive. I condemn 
no man who differs from me on this nice 
subject, as I have no direct proof. My great 
object is not to dispute with the naturalist, 
the philosopher, or with the apiarian, how 
the Queen Bee becomes impregnated: be- 
