His great-aunt, Marie Huber, was known as a voluminous writer on religious and theological subjects, and as the translator and epitomizer of The Spectator (Amsterdam, 3 vols., 1753).

[8][9] From his early childhood, Francois was instructed in the field of literature as well as natural history, a passion he shared with his father.

However, Marie refused to abandon François and decided to wait until she was twenty-five, when she would be legally able to make that decision on her own.

[5] Marie became his reader, his secretary, and his observer, and she was very attentive in order to prevent any embarrassments in public that could have occurred from his disability.

This strong loving relationship was noticed by many, including Voltaire who mentioned it in his correspondence, and it was inspiration for Germaine de Staël when she described the Belmont family in her novel Delphine.

[5][6] He became interested in honey bees after being read the works of René de Réaumur and Charles Bonnet.

[5] Through his "observation", he discovered that the queen bee did not mate in the hive but in the air and detailed how the timing of this event was essential.

He looked at the dimensions of the cells and how they influence the shape of the insects, the way the larvae spins silk to make its cocoons.

He looked at the ways swarms formed and was the first to provide an accurate biological history of bee colonies.

It influenced other scientists, including the renowned naturalist Charles Darwin, who owned a copy and made a commentary of the book in his famous On the Origin of Species.

[10][5][14] The poet Jacques Delille in his Chant VII, Règne Animal celebrated Huber's blindness and discovery:[15][16] Enfin, de leur hymen savant dépositaire,L'aveugle Huber l'a vu par les regards d'autruiEt sur ce grand problème un nouveau jour a lui.He started studying wax and its production.

He had already explained the origin of propolis and was able to determine through observation with Burnens that wax came out from between the rings of the abdomen as laminated sheets.

These initial findings were published in Premier Mémoire sur l'origine de la Cire ('First memoir on the origin of wax') in 1804.

This begged the question of how they survived with such a large population in enclosed hives with only a small entrance for fresh air.

In order to analyse the air, he worked with Jean Senebier, another Geneva scientist who was researching this question with regards to vegetables.

[5] Francois Huber spent his last years in Lausanne being cared for by his daughter, Marie Anne de Molin.

On 20 December, he wrote to a friend: There is a time when it is impossible to remain neglectful; it is, when separating gradually from each other, we may reveal to those we love, all that esteem, tenderness, and gratitude, have inspired us with towards them.

[5][9] François Huber has been largely forgotten not only in the Geneva local history but also in the beekeeping community in spite of his discoveries having been unchallenged for over two centuries.