10 THE APIARY ; OR, 



lation. But the object of the bee-master is to train and educate 

 'his bees, and in so doing he avoids much of the risk and trouble 

 which is incurred by allowing the busy folk to follow their own 

 devices. The various methods for this end adopted by apiarians all 

 come under the term of the " depriving" system ; and they form part 

 of the great object of humane and economical bee-keeping, which is 

 to save the bees ahve instead of slaughtering them as under the old 

 clumsy system. A very natural question is often asked, — how it is 

 that upon the depriving system, where our object is to prevent 

 swarming, the increase of numbers is not so great as upon the 

 old plan ? It will be seen that the laying of eggs is performed by 

 the queen only, and that there is but one queen to each hive ; so 

 that where swarming is prevented, there remains only one hive or 

 stock, as the superfluous princesses are not allowed to come to 

 maturity. Our plan of giving additional store-room will, generally 

 speaking, prevent swarming ; this stay-at-home policy, we contend, 

 is an advantage, for instead of the loss of time consequent upon a 

 swarm hanging out preparatory to flight, all the bees are engaged 

 in collecting honey, and that at a time when the weather is most 

 favourable and the food most abundant. Upon the old system, the 

 swarm leaves the hive simply because the dwelling has not been 

 enlarged at the time when the bees are increasing. The emigrants 

 are always led off by the old queen, leaving either young or embryo 

 queens to lead off after swarms, and to furnish a mistress for the old 

 stock, and carry on the multiplication of the species. Upon the 

 antiquated and inhuman plan where so great a destruction takes 

 place by the brimstone match, breeding must, of course, be allowed 

 to go on to its full extent to make up for such sacrifices. Our 

 chief object under the new system is to obtain honey free from all 

 extraneous matter. Pure honey cannot be gathered from combs 

 where storing and breeding are performed in the same compartment. 

 For fuller explanations on this point, we refer to the various des- 

 criptions of our improved hives in a subsequent section of this work. 

 There can now be scarcely two opinions as to the uselessness of 

 the rustic plan of immolating the poor bees after they have striven 

 through the summer so to "improve each shining hour." The 

 ancients in Greece and Italy took the surplus honey and spared the 

 bees, and now for every intelligent bee-keeper there are ample 

 appliances wherewith to attain the same results. Mr. Langstroth 



