154 BEE-FARMING. 



and calls himself a philanthropist ! ! ! He ought to be 

 sent to the treadmill. Why does the Society for Pre- 

 venting Cruelty to Animals take up the case of cab-horses, 

 and overlook the murdered bees ? But there are regular 

 inquisitors who do not use sulphur. These scientific 

 crinkum-crankum hives, from which bees with difficulty 

 get out and vsath more difficulty get in, are little purga- 

 tories, over which the inquisitors preside. Vivisection is 

 no worse. Yet these men complain that all who advocate 

 simple, easily accessible, and comfortable homes for bees, 

 are behind the age, and ignorant of apiarian progress. 

 Do not let your bees find by painful experience that their 

 bee-master is their worst enemy." Thus, without any 

 explanation on my part, it will clearly be seen that man is 

 the chief enemy of our domestic honey-bee — often, may 

 be, from sheer ignorance of their requirements and habits. 

 But he is not the sole enemy; he may be the only biped 

 foe, yet there are other foes to be dreaded among the 

 quadrupeds: for example, the fox, bear, rats, and mice. 

 We do not so much fear any depredation in our day from 

 the fox, and it seems superfluous to class it amongst the 

 bee-enemies so far as England is concerned. In other 

 countries, however, they are formidable foes, as, for 

 instance, in France, where, if report is to be credited, he 

 relishes a morsel of honey-comb, and passes by the hen- 

 roost, perhaps filled with choice turkeys and fat geese, tO' 

 overturn the bee-hives. On the other hand, in this 

 country he seems to disregard either the bees or bee-hives. 

 M. Ducarne says: "These rascals of foxes eat the bees 

 as well as the honey, but it is the honey to which they 

 are most partial. For two years a particular fox came 

 every winter to overthrow my hives. I put a chicken 

 and some bread to amuse him, and some poison to kill 

 him ; but no, the cunning thief would not touch either, 

 he went directly to the hives. Mark the sagacity of the 



