348 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



MayI. 



double my honey crop if it wasn't for their 

 disposition to swarm just as soon as there is 

 any honey to amount to any thing, and some- 

 times before." 



" That is so," chimed in Tim Fasset, who 

 had come in unobserved, and was sitting on a 

 nail-keg back of the stove. "I would give 

 five hundred dollars for a breed of bees that 

 wouldn't swarm. Down at Slabtown last }ear 

 just as my bees began to work in the surplus 

 boxes they began to swarm. We put back, 

 and cut out queen-cells, and united, and chang- 

 ed places ; but when the season was through 

 we had only 500 finished seciions and 2')00 

 partly filled ones, fit only for the extractor. I 

 tell you, we have got to get rid of this swarm- 

 ing some way." 



turned on his heels and left. After the air 

 had cleared a little I began. 



" Now, deacon, I want to have a plain talk 

 with you. It is a matter of a good deal of 

 importance to a good many of us bee-keepers 

 whether we are to have a breed or strain of 

 non-swarming bees." 



"It can't be done," said the deacon. 

 " They were told to multipl}', and it is a natu- 

 ral instinct." 



"Sj is fear a natural instinct," said I. 

 " Was not Noah told that the fear of man 

 should be on the bi asts of the field and the 

 fowls of the air, etc ? But we see when man 

 tames them and domesticates them the fear is 

 taken away. So the Lord gave sheep and cat- 

 tle horus to defend themselves with ; but when 



IT'S AGAINST BOTH NATURE AND SCRIPTURE. IT CAN'T BE DONE." 



"It can't be done ; it's a natural instinct," 

 said the deacon. 



I don't know what he would have said fur- 

 ther ; for just then Dan Savage opened the 

 door, and, before I had time to look around, 

 began : 



" Say, LTncle Lisha, you have got a hog- 

 hook, I reckon, hain't jou? I's killing my 

 old Poland-China hog, and when we got him 

 in the scalding-tub the hook gave way, and 

 we all had to nerve to like Caesar, to get him 

 out. A pretty hot scald, I reckon. I tell you, 

 them Poland-China hogs keep easy, and there 

 is lots of money in them too I reckon. But 

 you didn't tell me whether you could lend me 

 a hog-hook." 



"No, sir, I could not," I replied, rather 

 curtly. " I haven't a hog-hook nor a hog nor 

 a hogpen, nor any thing that smells like one, 

 around my premises." 



"I reckon that's so," he remarked, as he 



man destroys their enemits he can get rid of 

 these unnecessary appendages." 



" I tell you," said the deacon, " it is against 

 Scripture." 



" Now, look here," said I. " Doesn't it say 

 in that first chapter of Genesis that man was 

 created to have dominion over the beasts of 

 the field and the fowls of the air, and every 

 thing? and he was commanded, not only to 

 have dominion, but to subdue them for his 

 own use ; and you see how natural it is for 

 man to have dominion and rule over the beasts 

 and fowls and fish, and even his fellow-man. 

 You see what immense herds of buffalo he has 

 subdued. See how he has subdued the great 

 whales in our northern oceans. My diction- 

 ary says, to have dominion means to have the 

 power to direct and control and dispose of at 

 pleasure. Thus a man has dominion over 

 horses and cattle and sheep, and every thing 

 he can make do as he wants it to. Yet a man 



