APPENDIX. 109 



These hives have been introduced into several of the 

 ■ States, and have mot the cordial approval of apiarists, who 

 acknowledge that the principles they involve seem very 

 likely to obviate those formidable difficulties to which we 

 have adverted. It is well known that the rainy and unpleasant 

 seasons intervening between the seventh ,and the sixteenth 

 days after the first swarm appears, effectually prevent any 

 subsequent swarming for that season. : " 



Huber, the great naturalist, who flourished at the close of 

 the eighteenth century, has placed this matter beyond ques- 

 tion. The last season (1853) furnishes a case in point. We 

 had a rain about the 27th of June, in the midst of the most 

 plentiful swarming, which immediately ceased from that time, 

 throughout the State of Vermont. This verified the predic- 

 tions we expressed to several of our acquaintance, knowing, 

 as we did, the almost invariable result of any such occur- 

 rence. By a timely application of these principles to the 

 hive, we shall be enabled to prevent any further swarming, 

 whenever it is desired, and thus to escape the destruction of 

 the entire colony which often occurs in consequence. 

 , The reader will recollect that the only means of retaining 

 these strong colonies in the swarming-hives (and those hives 

 are unprofitable from which swarms never issue) is by con- 

 fining the queens by the devicffwe proposed, for the reason 

 that any other method of contracting the passage into the hive, 

 than by a perpendicular concave' entrance, adjusted to a con- 

 vex lens, (or watch-crystal,) will'^impede the bees in their 

 work, while our gauge, being composed of glass, will neither 

 wear their wings nor remove the farinai'^or " bee-bread" from 

 their legs. There are many other advantages resulting from 

 the use of our hives, with the modifications which have re 

 cently been invented. For instance : the centre cross-bars 

 are so arranged as to suspend the swarm when first intro- 

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