9!^9. 



ENEMIES OF BEES. 



bee-keeper in his contest with the moth. The great difficulty 

 is, that they are none of them, able to give him the facilities 

 which alone can make him completely victorious. No hive, 

 as I shall soon show, can ever do this, which does not give 

 the complete and easy control of all the combs. 



I do not know of a single improved hive which does not 

 aim at entirely dispensing, with the old-fashioned plan of 

 killing the bees. Such a practice is denounced as being al- 

 most as cruel and silly as to kill a hen for the sake of 

 obtaining her feathers or a few of her eggs. Now if the 

 Apiarian can be furnished with suitable instructions, and 

 such as he will practice, for managing his bees so as to 

 avoid this necessity, then I admit the full force of all the ob- 

 jections which have been urged against it, and should be glad 

 to see the following epitaph, taken from a German work, 

 placed on every pit of brimstoned bees. 



HERE BESTS 



CUT OFF FROM USEFUL LABOR, 



a COLONY of 



INDUSTRIOUS BEES, 



BASELY MURDERED 



by its 



UNSKATEFUL AND I&SORANT 



OWNER. 



I have never read the beautiful verses of the poet Thomp- 

 son, without feeling all their force : 



" Ah, see, where robbed and murdered in that pit 

 Lies the still heaving hive ! at evening snatched, 

 Beneath the cloud of guilt-concealing night, 

 And fixed o'er sulphur ! while, not dreaming ill, 

 The happy people, in their waxen cells. 

 Sat tending public cares ; 

 Siidden, the dark oppressive steam ascends, 

 And, n.sed to milder scents, the tender race, 

 By thousands, tumble from their honied dome ! 

 Into a gulf of blue sulphureous flame." 



