THE HONEY-BEE. 225 



which will affect the produce of both, in honey and 

 bees, but to which both are liable. 



We are now to compare the suffocating system 

 with that by which, even though we defer the honey 

 harvest to the usual late period of September, we may 

 obtain the same quantity of produce, and at the same 

 time save the lives of the bees. " Were we to kill 

 the hen for her egg," says Wildman indignantly, 

 " the cow for her milk, or the sheep for the fleece it 

 bears, every one would instantly see how much we 

 should act contrary to our interest ; and yet this is 

 practised every year in our inhuman and impolitic 

 slaughter of the bees." It is mortifying to find writers 

 of some celebrity in this branch of rural economy, 

 defending the practice of suffocation, and using such 

 arguments as the following : " If he who dines every 

 day on a good dish of animal food, does not find fault 

 with the farmer who sold his cattle to the butcher, 

 or who carried them to the market after he had him- 

 self cut their throats, why does he exclaim against 

 the Bee-cultivator who suffocates insects destined by 

 nature to die in the following year ?"* Independent 

 of the consideration that the carcase of the bee is 

 not, like that of the she.ep or ox, of use after its 

 death, and that advantage may be derived from it 

 while in life, the cold calculating spirit which could 

 approve and recommend such uncalled-for barbarity, 

 seems very inconsistent with the enthusiastic admira- 

 tion of the insect generally felt by apiarians, and be- 

 trays more of the selfishness of the honey-merchan^ 

 * Feburier, Traite des Abeilles. 



