64 THE BEE keeper's MANUAL. 



which were twenty years old, and the Abbe Delia Bocca 

 speaks of some over forty years old ! Such cases have led 

 to the erroneous opinion that bees are a leng-lived race. 

 But this, as Dr. Evans has observed, is just as wise as if a 

 stranger, contemplating a populous city, and personally un- 

 acquainted with its inhabitants, should on paying it a second 

 visit, many years afterwards, and finding it equally populous, 

 imagine that it was peopled by the same individuals, not one 

 of whom might then be living. 



" Like leaves on trees, the race of bees is found, 

 " Now green in youth, now withering on the ground ; 

 " Another race the Spring or Fall supplies, 

 " They droop successive, and successive rise." 



The cocoons spun by the larvag, are never removed by 

 the bees; they stick so closely to the sides of the cells, that 

 the knowing bee well understands that the labor of removal 

 would cost more than it would be worth. In process of 

 time, the breeding cells become too small for the proper 

 development of the young. In some cases, the bees must 

 take down and reconstruct the old combs, for if they did 

 not, the young issuing from them would always be dwarfs ; 

 whereas I once compared with other bees, those of a colo- 

 ny more than fifteen years old, and found no perceptible 

 difference. That they do not always renew the old combs, 

 must be admitted, as the young from some old hives are 

 often considerably below the average size. On this account, 

 it is very desirable to be able to remove the old combs oc- 

 casionally, that their place may be supplied with new ones. 



It is a great mistake to imagine that the brood combs 

 ought to be changed every year. In my hives, they might, 

 if it were desirable, be easily changed several times in a 

 year : but once in five or six years is often enough ; oftener 

 than this requires a needless consumption of honey to re- 

 place them, besides being for other reasons undesirable, as 



