Home › Bee-Culture at Present › Bee-Culture at Present: Huber

Bee-Culture at Present: Huber

In the time of Bonnet lived a unique figure, the Genevese, Francis Huber, who devoted much of his time to the study of the bee and made several discoveries, so remarkable that they exposed him to the ridicule of many in his own time, but which since have been proven and accepted by the scientific world.

Huber's story is the most romantic in the annals of the naturalists, for, born of good and talented parents and pursuing too arduously the delightful paths of knowledge open to him, at an early age he became blind. Since his interest was mainly in the world of nature this would have seemed to many an insurmountable affliction. Not so to Huber. Possessed of a particularly genial and childlike nature, he was able not only to overcome the drawbacks inci- Bee-Culture at Present dent to his infirmity but perhaps even to turn them to his advantage. Deprived of his physical eyes, he focused the vision of his mind upon the problems he set himself to solve, and to a remarkable extent solved them. He was fortunate in two particulars.

The girl he loved did not desert him in his time of need. Against the wishes of her friends and relatives she persisted in becoming the wife of the blind man, and was his sympathetic helper and consoler through a long and happy union.

Besides his wife he had a faithful servant, Francis Burnens by name, who with incalculable patience and thoroughness conducted the experiments and made the observations necessary in the investigations of his blind master, and to a great extent was responsible for his brilliant successes. Huber was one of the first to use successfully glass hives for the purpose of observing the actions of the bees, and he invented one that preserved the normal condition of the swarm almost perfectly. - As long ago as the time of Pliny attempts were made to watch the bees through transparent walls, and he tells us that many persons had hives made of "lapis specularis " probably a sort of talc - for this purpose, and elsewhere he speaks of "a man of consular dignity near Rome, whose hives were made of transparent lantern horn."

Although many interesting discoveries about bees had been made by the beginning of the nineteenth century, it is interesting to note that the views of Aristotle and Pliny continued to be held by the people even as late as the middle of the century. The modern scientists were not able to displace the theories of their brilliant predecessors in the minds of the people until their work was corroborated by overwhelming evidence from many sources, and gradually became the property of all classes.

There is at the present time a long list of books about bees suited to the average reader, many of which are admirable.

No great general progress was made in practical beekeeping until within about fifty years. In that time the methods of handling bees and honey have taken immense strides, so that bee-keeping to-day is more scientifically practised than ever before, and probably there is more honey harvested to-day than ever before.

It is only in Europe and North America, however, or in countries colonized by Europeans or Americans, that the bee is scientifically cultivated. The whole world owns the bee, but the whole world has not yet learned how to profit to the utmost by its possession. Wherever flowers bloom bees hum. From the frozen regions to the equator they are the companions of the flowers. All civilized peoples keep them and have done so from remote ages, and many semicivilized races hive and care for them. The genus Apis supplies the most valuable honey-bees to the world, and to this genus belong the domesticated bees of Europe, Asia, Egypt and North America.

Apis Mellifica is the species best known to us, and varieties of this bee have now been introduced into nearly all parts of the world.