210 THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 



all the ingenuity and expense lavished upon which, are 

 known, by the better informed, to be as unnecessary as a 

 costly machine for lifting up bread and butter, and gently 

 pushing it into the mouth and down the throat of an 

 active and healthy child. 



The Rev. John Thorley, in his " Female Monarchy? 

 published at London, in 1744, appears to have first intro- 

 duced the practice of stupefying bees by the narcotic 

 fumes of the " puff" ball " (Fungus pulverulentus), dried 

 till it will hold fire like tinder. The same effect has 

 been produced by pushing a rag, saturated with chloro- 

 form or ether, into the entrance of the hive, and closing 

 all tight, to prevent the escape of the fumes. The .bees 

 soon drop motionless from their combs, and recover again 

 after a short exposure to the air. 



Some of my readers may suppose that such an easy 

 mode of stupefying bees would very greatly facilitate the 



of this invention is to elevate frames, one at a time, into a case with glass sides, 

 so that they may be examined without risk of annoyance from the bees. Great 

 ingenuity is exhibited by the inventor of this very costly and very complicated 

 hive, who seems to imagine that smoke " must be injurious both to the bees and 

 their brood." Even if a little smoke is so injurious, the Apiarian, by sweetened 

 water, or by drumming upon a hive, after closing its entrance, can cause the bees 

 to fill themselves with honey (p. 27), when all their combs may be safely lifted out. 



A Huber-hive, or one with movable bars, may be much more safely managed 

 than any one which proposes to elevate the frames, witK,at permitting them to be 

 pushed apart (p. 150). A single hive, the arrangeme* of which are such as to 

 maim and irritate bees, is more to be dreaded in a> Apiary than a thousand of 

 proper construction; as it educates bees to regard >eir keeper in the light of an 

 enemy. 



On p. 15, 1 have spoken of the bar-hive, as at ^east one hundred years old. 

 From " A Journey into Greece, by George Whaler, Esq.," made in 1675-6, it 

 appears that it was, at that time, in common use t*vere, and, probably, even then an 

 old invention ; he describes how it was used for Arming artificial swarms, and re- 

 moving spare honey. As the new swarms w*e made by dividing the combs be- 

 tween two hives,' and no mention is made r< giving the queenless one a royal coll 

 those old observers were probably acquainted with the fact that they could rear 

 one from the worker-brood. Huber ays: "Monticelli, a Neapolitan Professor, 

 claims that the plan of artificial swarming was borrowed from Favignana, and that 

 the practice is so ancient that eve he Latin names are preserved by the inhabi- 

 tants in their procedure." 



