Marie-Aimée Lullin

Lullin was the daughter of Pierre Lullin (1712-1789), who served as syndic of Geneva, and Sarah Rilliet (1723-1751).

She married François Huber (1750-1831), the famous blind entomologist,[1][2] on 28 April 1776 in Geneva, Republic of Geneva after having to wait seven years to do so. Lullin had become friends with Huber at 17 when they were dance partners,[3] but Lullin's father would not allow her to marry, at so young an age, a man with failing eyesight.[2] Instead of abandoning Huber, she decided to wait until she had attained the age of 25, when she was legally allowed choose a husband despite the disapproval of her father.[1][2][3] Their marriage was such a love story that they were the inspiration for the novel Delphine by Germaine de Staël and was noticed by Voltaire in their correspondence.[3] Lullin stood with her husband as a life-long partner and helped to alleviate his blindness where she could, so that he never truly felt misfortune in being blind.[4]

They had three children together:[1] Pierre Huber (1777-1840),[5][3][6] Marie Anne Huber (1779-1871)[3] who married Samuel de Molin, and Jean Huber (1785-1839). Her death in 1822 affected her husband deeply, causing him to slow down, under the care of their daughter, Marie Anne.[3][4]

Lullin was described as having a small stature while also being incredibly full of life, so much that Huber would apply the same characteristics of the bees to his wife.[3][4] Her husband's description of her was Latin: mens magna in corpore parvo, which translates to 'great mind in a small body'.[3][4] Huber then applied this description to the bees, describing them with the phrase, Ingentes animos angusto in pectore versant, translating to 'Their little bodies lodge a mighty soul'.[3]

In 1991, a Venus crater was named after Marie Lullin. It is located 23.1 N and 81.0 E, and it measures 24 kilometres (15 mi).[7][8]

Lullin was considered "one of the earliest women to study insects experimentally."[9] Lullin became her husband's "reader, secretary and observer."[2][3] Together with their son Pierre and a servant, François Burnens, she helped Huber carry out his experiments that laid the foundations of scientific knowledge with regard to the life and biology of the honey bee.[2][3] While her roles were never specified in their work, she was described as "a good pair of eyes for him,"[4] especially as blindness fully set in. She and Burnens would make the observations through Huber's questioning, and then he would come to his own conclusions.[4] In volume one of Huber's book French: Nouvelles Observations sur les Abeilles (New Observations on Bees),[10][11] Burnens received recognition for his assistance in the preface, whereas Lullin did not.[4][12] When Burnens had left Huber, Marie had gained a larger role doing more of the investigations and all of the observations while working with their son.[2][9] Pierre would go on to be an editor for volume two of Huber's book, where Marie was still uncredited.[2][13]

Their discoveries on bees include the mating processes of the queen, the communicative function of the antenna, the production of wax, and the process of how drones left the hive.[2][4][9]