Notice of Works lately published on the Hive Bee.[1]
Τις την μελιτταν, την σοφην την εργατιν
Γεωμετρειν επεισε, και τριωροφὅς
Οικὅς εγειρειν έξαγονων κτισματων.
Pisidius.
"Among all the creatures which our bountiful God has made for the use and service of man, in respect of great profit and small cost, of their ubiquity, or being in all countries, of their comely order and continual labour, the bees are most worthy our admiration." So says Sir J. More, and so thinks Mr. Cotton: for his treatise on bees entitled 'My Bee-Book' is a rare and pleasant book, not only in its original matter—if anything concerning bees can be called original—but in its varied and interesting reprints. In the history of the hive bee are two eras; the first extending from the invention of letters to the publication of Huber's "observations;" the second from that date down to the present time. During the first period the bee was zealously cultivated, its instinct extolled, its labours admired, its honey prized, and its history faithfully recorded, more especially by Reaumur; yet in the work of poor blind Huber, there is something so complete, so masterly, so ably recorded, that from the moment of its appearance there has been no second authority consulted—no other source of information. His very errors—and some slight errors have crept in—are copied with a religious and unhesitating faith that be* speaks more than language the estimation in which he is held. The works dated ante Huber were immediately laid aside, and, like Virgil's poetical recipe for the creation of bees, have been regarded as little better than apocryphal.
It is or it ought to be generally known that Huber was blind from his early youth, and that the delightful history of the honey bee recorded in his works is the result of the patient watching of his faithful servant Francis Burnens. This man was first employed to read works on Natural History to his master, and it was only by degrees that he was entrusted to make those observations which have acquired for his master such universal reputation. "We began" says Huber "to mark the bees in glass hives; we repeated the experiments of M. de Reaumur, and we obtained exactly the same results when we employed the
- ↑ My Bee-Book. By William Charles Cotton, M.A. London: J.G.F. & J.
Rivington. 1842.
The Honey Bee, its Natural History, Physiology and Management. By Edward Bevan, M.D. London: Van Voorst, Paternoster Row. 1838.
