Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/514

498 depth of an ordinary cell, the bees began excavating a cell on one side, and two on the other; these cells were so arranged that the partition-wall between the two cells was exactly opposite the middle of the one.

Bees, Huber tells us, do no truly coöperative work; the only thing which looks like cooperation is the unanimity with which the whole swarm waits till one bee has laid the foundation. Each bee follows the suggestion of the one which has preceded it. As the work progresses, it becomes possible for a larger and larger number to join in, and it is only the foundation-cells which are excavated; the others are built in their permanent form.

The much-praised exactness of the bee is shown to have been over-estimated; but the variations which we find in the hive are much more extraordinary than the uniformity. These are always due to something wonderfully like the intelligence of man, in its power of conforming to circumstances.

Only once in his life was Huber turned aside from his peculiar work. In his investigation upon the ventilation of the hive, he had occasion to introduce some seeds, and watch their germination. At the suggestion of Senebier, whom he had associated with himself in these particular experiments, he turned his attention to the phenomenon of germination, and, in connection with him, prepared a paper entitled "Mémoire sur l'Influence de l'Air dans le Germination des Grains," Geneva, 1801, but he soon returned to the work of his life.

No more striking commentary can be made upon the extent of Huber's labors than that afforded by a consideration of the work of his successors. The German apiarian Dzierzon has cleared up the mystery of the drone-laying queens—a mystery fully recognized and clearly stated by Huber. Many facts have been added to those discovered by Huber, and some few corrections of his statements have been made; but it has fallen to the lot of few naturalists to leave behind them a work so full and accurate as his. All that has been done in this department since his time—and, altogether, it falls short of the work performed by him—is merely a building upon his foundation.

The discoveries which he made are recorded, in full, and are supported by experiments, described with such lucidity, that to read them is almost like witnessing the facts. His clear, unerring intellect, penetrating through all side-issues, seized the gist of every difficulty; and those which he did not finally solve, he stated with such accuracy as to direct the observation of his successors.