INTEODUOTOKY EEMAEKS. 21 



come unimpaired through millions of generations to the 

 present day, and will continue unchanged. 



To gratify our acquisitiveness, we have forced them to 

 labor under every disadvantage ; yes, we have compelled 

 them to sacrifice their industry, their prosperity, and even 

 their lives, but they have never yielded their instincts. We 

 may destroy life, but cannot improve or change their na- 

 ture ; the laws that govern them are fixed and immutable. 



Spring returns to its annual task, dissolves the frost and 

 warms into life nature's dormant powers. Flowers, with 

 a smile of joy expand their delicate petals in grateful 

 thanks, while the stamens sustain upon their tapering 

 points the anthers covered with the fertilizing pollen, and 

 the pistil springs from a cup of liquid nectar, and the 

 delicious fragrance imparted to every breeze, invites the 

 bee as with a thousand tongues to the sumptuous ban- 

 quet. She does not need any stimulus from man as an 

 inducement to partake of the feast ; without his aid she 

 visits each cup of wasting sweetness, and secures the tiny 

 drop, while the superabundant faiina, dislodged fi-om the 

 nodding anthers, covers her body to be brushed together 

 and kneaded into bread. All she requires at the hand of 

 man, is a suitable storehouse for her treasures. 



Industry is a part of bee nature. If, when their tenement 

 is supplied with aU things necessary to take them safely 

 through the winter, and there is no necessity for continued 

 labor, we furnish them additional room, they assiduously 

 toU to fill it up. Rather than to jjass their time in idleness, 

 during a bounteous yield of honey, they wUl sometimes 

 deposit their surplus in combs outside of the hive, or under 

 the stand. This inherent industry lies at the foundation 

 of aU the advantages in bee-keeping, consequently our 

 hives must be constructed with this end in view ; but at 

 the same time we must not interfere with other require- 

 mrents of their nature. Their peculiar traits mentioned in 



