190 



HANDLING BEES. 



only natural sweet; and the promise of "a land flowing 

 with milk and honey" had once a significance which it is 

 difficult for us fully to realize. The honey-bee, therefore, was 

 created not merely to store up its delicious nectar for its own 

 use, but with certain propensities, without which man could 



Fig. 89. 



OPENING THE HIVE AND E.XAMINING THE COMBS. 



Apiary of Mr. Mont-Jovet, Albertville, Savoie. 



no more subject it to his control, than he could make a useful 

 beast of burden of a lion or a tiger. 



379. One of the peculiarities which constitutes the foun- 

 dation of the present system of management, and indeed of 

 the possibility of domesticating at all so irascible an insect, 

 has never to our knowledge been clearly stated as a great and 

 controlling principle by any one before Mr. Langstroth. It 

 may be thus expressed : 



