My Bees 141 



In the old-fashioned hives it was necessary to 

 kill the bees by suffocating them with sulphur 

 smoke before the honey could be cut out of 

 the hive. In the new hives, if I may so call the 

 hives which date from twenty years ago, the 

 bees are never much disturbed when honey is 

 taken out of the hive ; the idea of killing bees 

 in order to get honey would now be considered 

 atrocious barbarism. The modern method of 

 taking the honey-boxes out of the hives is 

 simply to drive the bees from the boxes down 

 to their own frames by the use of the smoke 

 of rags, when the boxes may be lifted off with- 

 out injuring the bees. About five hundred 

 patents have been taken out within the last 

 twenty years for improved beehives, and the 

 farmers in some parts of the country have been 

 so annoyed by the claims of people who pre- 

 tend to own patent rights upon hives which 

 they had puchased, that the rapacity of these 

 hive inventors has driven many of them out of 

 the business. The moment a man bought what 

 seemed to be a sensible and cheap hive, he was 

 called upon to pay royalties to some one who 

 claimed the patent. The number of different 



