NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HONEY BEE. 67 



For want of correct knowledge with regard to the age of 

 bees, huge " bee palaces," and large closets in garrets or 

 attics, have been constructed, and their proprietors have 

 vainly imagined that the bees would fill them, however spa- 

 cious ; for they can see no reason why a colony should not 

 continue to increase indefinitely, until at length it numbers 

 its inhabitants by millions or billions I As the bees can 

 never at one time equal, still less exceed, the number which 

 the Queen is capable of producing in a season, these spacious 

 dwellings have always an abundance of " spare rooms." 

 It seems strange that men can be thus deceived, when often 

 in their own Apiary, they have healthy stocks which have 

 not swarmed for a year or more, and which yet in the Spring 

 are no more populous Ihan those which have regularly 

 parted with vigorous colonies. 



It is certain that the Creator, has wisely set a limit to the 

 increase of numbers in a single colony ; and I shall venture 

 to assign what appears to me to have been one reason for 

 His so doing. Suppose that he had given to the bee, a length 

 of life as great as that of the horse or the eow, or had made 

 each Queen capable of laying daily, some hundreds of thou- 



for obtaining money nnder false pretences. Others are disposed of, on 

 the ground that the patent is still pending, when no application for a pa- 

 tent has ever been made, or has long ago been rejected. Often the 

 patented part of a hive, being a worthless conceit, is carefully con- 

 cealed, while much ingenuity is displayed, in exhibiting those fea- 

 tures in the hive, which any one has a right to use ; and yet which 

 the vender, sometimes by implication, and sometimes by direct asser- 

 tion, leads the parcbaser to believe, are essentiail features in the pa- 

 tent. 



No one should ever purchase a « patent hive," until he ascertains at 

 least two things : 1st, that there is really a patent on the invention ; 

 and 2d, that the part patented is, in his opinion, worth the money 

 demanded for the right to use it. 



