288 THE beekeeper's manual. 



It will be perfectly obvious to every intelligent and in- 

 genious Apiarian, that the perfect control of the comb, is 

 the soul of an entirely new system of practical management, 

 and that it may be modified to suit the wants of all who 

 wish to cultivate bees. Even the advocate of the old fash- 

 ioned plan of killing the bees, can with one of my hives, 

 destroy his faithful laborers, by 'shaking them into a tub of 

 water, almost, if not quite as speedily as by setting them 

 over a sulphur pit ; while after the work of death is accom- 

 plished, his honey will be free from disgusting fumes, and all 

 the labor of cutting it out of the hive, may be dispensed with. 



I am now prepared to answer an objection which doubt- 

 less has been present in the minds of many, all the time 

 that they have been reading the various processes on which 

 I rely for the multiplication of colonies. A very large num- 

 ber of persons.who keep bees, or who wish to keep them, 

 are so much afraid of them that they object entirely even to 

 natural swarming, because they are in danger of being stung 

 in the process of hiving the bees. How are such persons to 

 manage bees on my plan, which seems like bearding a lion 

 in its very den ! The truth is that some persons are so very 

 timid, or suffer so dreadfully from the sting of a bee, that 

 they are every way disqualified from having anything to 

 do with them, and ought either to have no bees upon their 

 premises, or to entrust the care of them to some suitable 

 person. By managing bees according to the directions furt 

 nished in this treatise, almost any one can learn, by us- 

 ing a bee-dress, to superintend them, with very little risk ; 

 while those who are favorites with them, may dispense 

 entirely with any protection. I find in short, that the risk 

 of being stung is really diminished by the use of my hives ; 

 although it will be hard to convince those who have not 

 seen them in use, that this can be so. 



