40 REPORTS. 



For winds, when homeward Ihey return, will drive* 

 The loaded carriers from their evening hive. 

 Far from the cows' and goats' insulting crew. 

 That trample down the flowers, and brush the dew ; 

 The painted lizard, and the birds of prey, 

 Foes of the frugal kind, be far away." 



THE BEE-HIVE. 



But hives are as essential to tte culture of the tee as are apia- 

 ries themselves. Of what kind then shall these be ? Just here 

 the difficulty arises, as the multitude of patent hives indicates. 

 Well has one said : " To criticise the productions of art and sci- 

 ence is easy, but to create them is difficult." Thus it would seem 

 to be respecting the creation of the bee-hive. Easy, indeed, is it 

 to construct new fangled hives, but the hive that shall surpass all 

 others in utility and simplicity of structure, that is the point. 

 The true philosophic principle in the construction of machinery, 

 is to make the machine which is to accomplish a given work as 

 simple as possible. Now it seems to us that this principle might 

 and should be employed in the construction of. the bee-hive. For 

 what is the object of the hive? It is simply this, to furnish the 

 bees a suitable place, where they may rear their broods, provide 

 their winter's supply of food, and deposit their surplus honey, so 

 that the owner may easily and safely possess it without detriment 

 to the bees. Now this can be accomplished with a very simply 

 constructed hive — a hive which every apiarist, or farmer even 

 can make for himself. The hive of which we speak is as good, 

 yea, better, than those complicated structures so often found in 

 the apiaries of the wealthy and the fanciful, but which are not 

 wanting upon the benches of the less favored. So complicated 

 are some of them that it must be more than a sabbath day's jour- 

 ney for the bees to pass through all their windings ; and it seems 

 as if the bees would need to be furnished with the clue of Ari- 

 adne., with which to extricate themselves. Now instead of all 



