26 HIVES. 
have been anxious to adopt some mode by which, if possible, they 
might preserve the lives of these industrious and most interesting 
little creatures, and at the same time procure a much purer article of 
honey ; buf‘ being, as before stated, unacquainted with the wants and 
natural habits of the bee, they have been easily made the dupes of 
designing men, and in many instances have nearly or quite annihi- 
lated their entire stock of bees, and consequently have become dis- 
couraged with all patented bee-hives. Not a few, however, have 
persevered, and, not willing to abandon it, have made the second, and 
some the third and even the fourth trial, with as many different 
hives, and with but little better success than at first. 
Hence it is not at all surprising that many have become prejudiced 
against all patented hives; for it is an old adage that “a burnt child 
dreads the fire;” so with those who have not only paid out their 
money for hives that were of no value, but have in many instances 
lost their bees besides. 
I, however, am of opinion, that much of the bad success in keeping 
bees in any and every form of hive, is owing to bad management. 
For we frequently find a person that has good success, let him use 
what hives he may, while his neighbor cannot keep them in any form 
of hive; and we also hear the former crowing or boasting over his suc- 
cess with the old hive, and will point at the latter, who has, from his 
poor success in the common hive, been constrained to purchase a 
patent hive, to see if he could not succeed with it better, but owing 
to mismanagement has failed in this also; and it is all laid to the 
hive;-and the former will tell him that the old common hive, after all, 
is far better than any patented hive that was ever invented; that it 
js more natural to the bee; that bees must swarm in order to prosper, 
&e. &e. 
I for one do not think that because a hive is patented it is either 
the better or the worse for it; but that its merits or demerits depend 
upon other considerations. Neither do I think that the old common 
hive is better adapted to the wants of the bee than any other hive; 
for certainly they are defective in many respects, as I have previously 
stated. I admit, and contend, that any hive calculated to change the 
natural instinct of the bee, is useless. But from experience I have 
