118 PROTECTION. 



is a point of the very first importance ; and yet this is the 

 very point, which in proportion to its importance, has been 

 most overlooked. We have discarded, and very wisely, the 

 straw hives of our ancestors ; but such hives, with all 

 their faults, were comparatively warm in Winter, and cool 

 in Summer. We have undertaken to keep bees, where the 

 cold of Winter and the heat of Summer are alike intense, 

 and where sudden and severe changes are often fatal to the 

 brood ; and yet we blindly persist in expecting success 

 under circumstances in which any marked success is well 

 nigh impossible. 



That our country is eminently favorable to the production 

 of honey, cannot be doubted. Many of our forests abound 

 with colonies which are not only able to protect themselves 

 against all their enemies, the dreaded bee-moth not excepted, 

 but which often amass prodigious quantities of honey. Nor 

 are such colonies found merely in new countries. They 

 exist frequently in the very neighborhood of cultivators 

 whose hives are weak and impoverished, and who impute 

 to a decay of the honey resources of the country, the inevit- 

 able consequences of their own irrational system of manage- 

 ment. It will not be without profit, to consider briefly under 

 what circumstances these wild colonies flourish, and how 

 they are protected against sudden and extreme changes of 

 temperature. 



Snugly housed in the hollow of a tree, whose thickness 

 and decayed interior are such admirable materials for ex» 

 eluding atmospheric changes, the bees in Winter are in a 

 state of almost absolute repose. The entrance to their abode 

 is generally very small in proportion to the space within ; 

 and let the weather out of doors vary as it may, the inside 

 temperature is very uniform. These natural hives are dry, 

 because the moisture findg no cold or icy top, or sides, on 



