51 



know not what, is the matter with the hive : our bees neither 

 swarm or make honey, and here is a case in point : We had 

 during the past season two hives exactly alike in size, shape, 

 and color, standing side by side, we judged one to be a little 

 stronger than the other ; during the month of June, any pleasant 

 day, bees enough for a swarm were hanging from the front of 

 the strongest hive, and in that hive no honey was put in the 

 boxes ; in the other, the bees, " from rise of morn till set of 

 sun," with their merry buzz were filling the boxes with honey. 

 We are satisfied from experiments that, in this case, all they 

 needed was to stir them up by artificial swarming. One gen- 

 tleman who is troubled in this way, says he is determined to 

 go back to the " old box hive," and apply sulphur to a part of 

 his bees every year, as his father did. But this is like burning 

 the barn to get rid of the rats. Intelligent bee - keepers 

 have argued for many years, that bee-keeping could not be 

 brought to perfection till a hive was invented which would 

 enable the bee-keeper to have control over the bees and combs, 

 and take them from and return them to the hive at his pleasure. 

 Huber (who has thrown more light on the physiology and 

 habits of the bee than all other writers) saw the necessity for 

 such a hive, and he made some advance towards it by con- 

 structing a hive with frames fastened together at the back, so 

 as to open and shut like the leaves' of a book. But this hive 

 never come into general use, because it was too complicated for 

 the majority of bee-keepers ; and thus for the want of a con- 

 trol over the interior of the hive bee-keeping has been aban- 

 doned by many persons for various reasons, but by far the 

 larger number on account of the 



MOTH. 



The moth has been the enemy of the bee for more than one 

 thousand years. Aristotle, Virgil, Columella, and other an-i 

 cient writers, mention its depredations. It is about sixty years 

 since it first attacked the bee on this continent ; it showed itself 

 in the eastern part of Massachusetts in the year 1800, in 1805 

 it was in Connecticut. 



