NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HONEY-BEE. 61 



unpatented hive, the pretended right to use which is 

 fraudulently sold to the cheated purchaser.* 



Apiarians, unaware of the brevity of the bee's life, have 

 often constructed huge "bee-palaces" and large closets, 

 vainly imagining that the bees would fill them, being una- 

 ble to see any reason why a colony should not increase 

 until it numbers its inhabitants by millions or billions. 

 But as the bees can never at one time equal, still less 

 exceed, the number which the queen is capable of pro- 

 ducing in a season, these spacious dwellings have always 

 an abundance of spare rooms. It seems strange that men 

 can be thus deceived, when often in their own Apiary 

 they have healthy stocks, which, though they have not 

 swarmed for a year or more, are no more populous in 

 the Spring, than those which have regularly parted with 

 vigorous colonies. 



It is certain that the Creator has wisely set a limit to 

 the increase of numbers in a single colony ; and I shall 

 venture to assign a reason for this. Suppose he had given 

 to the bee a length of life as great as that of the horse or 

 the cow, or had made each queen capable of laying daily 

 some hundreds of thousands of eggs ; or had given several 

 hundred queens to each hive ; then a colony must have 

 gone on increasing, until it became a scourge rather than 

 a benefit to man. In the warm climates of which the bee 



* Hives which have never been patented have been extensively sold as patent 

 articles by men, who for years have been liable to prosecution for obtaining money 

 under false pretences. Others are disposed of, on the ground that the patent is 

 still pending, when no application for a patent has ever been made, or has long 

 ago been rejected. Often the patented part of a hive, being a worthless conceit, is 

 carefully concealed, while much ingenuity is displayed, in exhibiting those fea- 

 tures is the hive which any one has a right to use ; and yet, which the vender, 

 sometimes by implication, and sometimes by direct assertion, leads the purchaser 

 to believe are essential parts of the patent. 



No one should ever purchase a "patent hive," until he ascertains two things: 

 1st, that there is really a patent on the invention ; and 2d, that the part patented 

 is, in his opinion, worth to him the money asked for the right to use it. 



