250 THE BEE keeper's MANUAL. 



read the beautiful verses of the poet Thompson, without 



feeling ail their force : 



" Ah, see, where robbed and murdered in that pit 

 Lies the still heaving hive ! at evening snatched, 

 Beneath the cloud of guilt-concealing night. 

 And fixed o'er sulphur! while, not dreaming ill, 

 The happy people, in their waxen cells, 

 Sat tending public cares ; 

 Sudden, the dark oppressive steam ascends, 

 And, used to milder scents, the tender race, 

 By thousands, tumble from their honied dbme ! 

 Into a gulf of blue sulphureous flame." 



The plain matter of fact however, is, that in our country, 

 as many bees, if not more, die of starvation in their hives, as 

 ever were killed by the fumes of sulphur. Commend me 

 rather to the humanity of the old-fashioned bee-keeper, who 

 put to a speedy and therefore merciful death, the poor bees 

 which are now, by millions, tortured by slow starvation among 

 their empty combs ! At the present time, (April 18.53,) I 

 am almost daily hearing of swarms which have perished in 

 this way, during the last Winter ; and I know of only one 

 person who was merciful enough to kill his weak stocks, 

 rather than suffer them to die so cruel a death. 



If the use of the common patent hives could only keep the 

 stocks strong in numbers, and if the bee-keepers would always 

 see that they were well supplied with honey, then I admit 

 that to kill the bees would be both cruel and unnecessary. 

 Such however, are the discouragements and losses necessa- 

 rily attending the use of any hive which does not give the 

 control of the combs, that there will be few who do not 

 continually find that some of their stocks are too feeble to 

 be worth the labor and expense of attempting to preserve 

 them over Winter. How many colonies are annually win- 

 tered, which are not only of no value to their owner, but are 

 positive nuisances in his Apiary ; being so feeble in the 

 Spring, that they are speedily overcome by the moth, and 



