524 
HUBER 
with lively picturesqueness — clearness of 
phrase growing out of clearness of vision, 
inner vision. His work is marvelous in its 
accuracy and fullness. Boundless patience 
and infinite skill unearthed hidden truths 
for him that had been searched for in vain 
for generations, from the seekers of ancient 
days on down to his own eminent friend 
Bonnet. 
He built the first observation hives- 
one for a single comb and others for sev¬ 
eral combs, opening like books with hinged 
leaves, each leaf containing a comb. Among 
his important discoveries are the impregna¬ 
tion of the queen in mid-air and the fact of 
one fertilization being sufficient; the de¬ 
velopment of eggs of an unmated queen 
into drones; the fact that a queen appar¬ 
ently knows what kind of egg she is about 
to lay and always deposits it in the right 
cell (tho he acknowledged and clearly stated 
a mystery in this matter of eggs and sex —- 
a mystery that later was largely cleared up 
by Dzierzon’s great discovery of the par- 
then ogenetic origin of drones) ; the rivalry 
of queens; the fact that queens can be 
reared from worker larvas; that if bees are 
given worker-cells containing worker eggs 
or larvae, and also royal jelly, they will 
never raise workers, but queens—and if 
queens are not desired, they will destroy 
the worker brood and devour the royal 
jelly; that eggs are true eggs — the em¬ 
bryonic development and emergence having 
been watched; that some workers sometimes 
become layers; that drone eggs will pro¬ 
duce drones even when reared in worker- 
cells — tho they may be small; and that 
worker eggs will produce workers even 
when reared in drone-cells—and they will 
not be larger. 
He aided in the discovery of ovaries in 
workers, thus doing away with the age-old 
idea of neuters. He ascertained that the 
slaughter of the drones never takes place 
in a colony lacking a fertile queen, or in 
one still fostering swarming ambitions. By 
placing eggs in cells of blown-glass, and 
thru these walls observing the spinning of 
cocoons, he concluded that drones and 
workers spin complete cocoons, while 
queens spin imperfect ones, which, envel¬ 
oping the head and thorax, extend only to 
the second segment of the abdomen, and 
inferred that if these cocoons were com¬ 
plete the queens could not destroy rival 
pupm. He observed that the laying of 
drone eggs is either coincident with swarm¬ 
ing preparations, or precedes them, and 
established many facts about swarming. He 
demonstrated by many experiments that 
bees, eggs, and larvas all absorb oxygen 
and give oft carbonic acid. In studying 
the air of the hive in this connection, he 
discovered the fact and the details of sys¬ 
tematic ventilation, and the renewal of air 
in the hive by wing work. He studied 
thoroly the Sphinx atropos (death’s head 
moth) and its ravages in the hive. He 
learned that the odor of the poison of the 
sting rouses other bees to stinging. He dis¬ 
covered the origin of propolis. 
Huber discovered that wax comes from 
the under side of the abdomen of the work¬ 
ers. He also proved it to be produced by 
the digestion and conversion of honey, tho 
it had long been supposed to come from the 
conversion of pollen. He confined one 
swarm of bees on honey only and another 
on pollen only. New comb was built in the 
first hive, and removed, seven times; while 
^none at all was made in the second. But 
why, then, he promptly wondered, do bees 
gather pollen? Not for the sustenance of 
the adult bee, he concluded after further 
study (in which he proved honey to be es¬ 
sential), but for larval food. After close 
scrutiny he decided that workers swallow 
pollen and later regurgitate it as food for 
the larva?. Marked bees were seen to eat 
pollen, go to the brood and plunge their 
heads into cells containing larvas. After 
they left, these cells were examined and 
found to contain a supply of larval food. 
Another thing that he discovered was that 
flowers do not always contain nectar, as 
had been supposed—and that nectar secre¬ 
tion is influenced by variations in atmo¬ 
spheric conditions. 
The entire process of comb construction 
was observed and recorded in all its detail. 
Bees were watched removing wax scales 
from the under side of the abdomen and 
passing them forward to the mandibles, 
whence, later, the plastic and cohesive wax 
issued and was attached to the top of the 
hive. One bee alone, he reported, starts 
the comb-building. When her supply of 
wax is exhausted, another follows, proceed¬ 
ing the same way, guided by the work of 
