238 THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 



the devouring pest. Ever since their introduction, the 

 notion has almost universally prevailed that stocks must 

 not, under any circumstances, be voluntarily destroyed ; 

 and hence, thousands of colonies, which, under the old 

 system, were mercifully killed, are now left to perish by 

 slow starvation, while thousands more are so feeble in the 

 Spring that they serve only to breed a host of moths to be 

 the pest of the Apiary. 



The truth is, that improved hives, without an improved 

 system of management, have done, on the whole, more 

 harm than good. In no country have they been so exten- 

 sively used as in our own, and no where has the moth so 

 completely gained the ascendency. Just so far as they 

 have discouraged ordinary bee-keepers from the old plan 

 of " taking up" their weak swarms in the Fall, just so far 

 have they extended "aid and comfort" to the moth. 

 Some of them might, unquestionably, be so managed as, 

 in ordinary cases, to protect the bees against the moth ; 

 but no hive which does not give the control of the combs, 

 can be relied on for ah 1 emergencies. As for many of the 

 complicated contrivances, which have been devised by 

 men ignorant of the first principles of bee-keeping, and 

 the " swindle-traps" of sharpers, who, to fill their own 

 pockets, would be glad to kill all the bees hi the world, 

 they not only afford no more security against the moth, 

 than the old box-hive, but are full of fixtures, which serve 

 no end but to annoy the bees and multiply lurking-places 

 for moths and worms. The more they are used, the 

 worse the condition of the bees ; just as the more a man 

 uses the nostrums of the lying quack, the farther he gets 

 from health.* 



* An intelligent man informed me that he paid ten dollars to a " 'bee-quack'" 

 professing to have an infallible secret for protecting bees against the moth. After 

 parting with his money, and learning that this secret consisted in " always keep- 

 ing strong stocks," he felt that he had been as grossly imposed upon, as if, aftei 



