PROTECTION. 



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honey an4 bees, lo be worth accepliflg, even as a gift. Many 

 strong colonies which are lodged in badly protected hives, 

 often consuaie in extra food, in a single hard virinter, more 

 than enough to pay the difference between the first cost of 

 a good hive over a bad one. In the severe winter of 1851-2, 

 many cultivators lost nearly all their stocks, and a large 

 part of those which survived, were too much weakened to 

 be able to swarm. And yet these same miserable hives, 

 after accomplishing the work of destruction on one genera- 

 tion of bees, are reserved to perform the same office for 

 another. And this some call economy ! 



1 am well aware of the question which many of my rea- 

 ders have for some time been ready lo ask of me. Can 

 you make one of your well protected hives as cheaply as 

 we construct our common hives ? I would remind such 

 questioners, that it is hardly possible to build a well protected 

 house as cheaply as a barn. 



And yet by building my hives in solid structures, three 

 together, I am able to make them for a very moderate price, 

 and still to give them even better protection than when they 

 are constructed singly. If they are not built of doubled 

 materials they c&n be made for as little money as any other 

 patent hive, and yet afford much greater protection ; as the 

 combs touch neither the lop, bottom nor sides of the hive. 

 I recommend however a construction, which although some- 

 what more costly at first, is yet much cheaper in the end. 



Such is the passion of the American people for cheap- 

 ness in the first cost of an article, even at the evident ex- 

 pense of dearness in the end, that many, I doubt not, will 

 continue to lodge their bees in thin hives, in spite of their 

 conviction of the folly of so doing ; just as many of our 

 shrewdest Yankees build thin wooden houses, in the cold 

 climate of New England, or plaster their stone or brick 

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