At the early age of seventeen this remarkable man lost his sight by _gutta serena_, the "drop serene" of our own Milton. But though cut off from the sight of Nature's works, he dedicated himself to their study. He saw them through the eyes of the admirable woman whom he married; his philosophical reasonings pointed out to her all that he wanted to ascertain; and as she reported to him from time to time the results of his ingenious experiments, he was enabled to complete, by diligent investigation, one of the most accurate and satisfactory accounts of the habits of bees which had ever been produced.
It had long been known that the bees of a hive consist of three sorts, which was ascertained by M. Réaumur to be distinguished as workers or neuters, constituting the bulk of the population; drones or males, the least numerous class; and a single female, the queen and mother of the colony. Schirach subsequently discovered the very extraordinary fact, which Huber and others have proved beyond doubt, that when a hive is accidentally deprived of a queen, the grub of a worker can be and is fed in a particular manner so as to become a queen and supply the loss.[Z] But another discovery of M. Huber is of more importance to the subject of architecture now before us. By minute research he ascertained that the workers which had been considered by former naturalists to be all alike, are divided into two important classes, nurse-bees and wax-makers.
The _nurse-bees_ are rather smaller than the wax-workers, and even when gorged with honey their belly does not, as in the others, appear distended. Their business is to collect honey, and impart it to their companions; to feed and take care of the young grubs, and to complete the combs and cells which have been founded by the others; but they are not charged with provisioning the hive.
The _wax-workers_, on the other hand, are not only a little larger, but their stomach, when gorged with honey, is capable of considerable distension, as M. Huber proved by repeated experiments. He also ascertained that neither of the varieties can alone fulfil all the functions shared among the workers of a hive. He painted those of each class with different colours, in order to study their proceedings, and their labours were not interchanged. In another experiment, after supplying a hive deprived of a queen with brood and pollen, he saw the nurse-bees quickly occupied in the nutrition of the grubs, while those of the wax-working class neglected them. When hives are full of combs, the wax-workers disgorge their honey into the ordinary magazines, making no wax; but if they want a reservoir for its reception, and if their queen does not find cells ready made wherein to lay her eggs, they retain the honey in the stomach, and in twenty-four hours they produce wax. Then the labour of constructing combs begins.