CHAPTER Ix. 
HIVES. 
Tue good or ill success in the culture of the Honey Bee, in my. 
opinion, depends very much upon the size and form of the hive used. 
But various are the opinions of apiarians on this subject. Hives 
or boxes of almost every imaginable shape and size have been 
used, and each had its advocates. Many vague and false theories 
have been advanced, and each of these has found supporters for a 
season at least; and it appears, upon looking back upon the history of 
Bee-Hives for the last twenty years, that the greater the humbug the 
greater the success with which they have been palmed off upon the - 
unwary and too confiding bee-keepers of our country; and if the 
question were asked, why have the venders of these worthless bee- 
hives met with such universal success in disposing of their worthless 
impositions, the only true and correct answer must be, because bee- 
keepers have generally paid so little attention to the subject, that they 
have not been prepared to judge correctly between a good article 
and a poor one. Within the last few years I have conversed with 
hundreds of bee-keeper's, who have kept bees (or tried to, as they say) 
for a period varying from ten to forty years, and I think I may safely 
state that full one-half of this number know no more about the natural 
habits and wants of the bee, than if they had never been engaged in 
the business in any way or shape. Some have kept them in the old 
common box hive, and have never devoted one moment’s thought or 
study as to their habits or wants. As their “fathers did, so do they;” 
and whenever they obtained any honey, it has been at the expense 
of the lives of the bees that gathered it ; and they have considered it 
as indispensable to destroy them to obtain their honey, as it would 
be to kill a horse to obtain his skin; and I seriously consider the 
cases just about parallel, and that it is about as good economy to kill 
a good horse for his skin, or cut down a good fruit tree to obtain its 
fruit, as to murder a good colony of bees to obtain their honey. 
Others have been actuated by motives more humane, and have 
manifested a desire to keep pace with the progress of the age, and 
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