ENEMIES OP BEES. 253 



The plain matter of fact, however, is, that in our country, 

 almost as many bees in proportion to the stocks kept, die df 

 starvation in their hives, as ever were killed by the fumes of 

 sulphur. Commend me rather to the humanity of the old-fash- 

 ioned bee-keeper, who put to a speedy and therefore more 

 merciful death, the poor bees which are now, by millions, 

 tortured by slow starvation among their empty combs ! 



If the use of the common patent hives could only keep the 

 stocks strong in numbers, and if bee-keepers would al- 

 ways see that they were well supplied with honey, then I 

 admit that to kill the bees would be both cruel and unnecessa- 

 ry. Such however, are the discouragements and losses 

 necessarily attending the use of any hive which does not give 

 the control of the combs, that there are few who do not 

 continually find, that some of their stocks are too feeble, to 

 be worth the labor and expense of an attempt to preserve 

 them over Winter. How many colonies are annually winter- 

 ed, which are not only of no value to their owner, but are 

 positive nuisances in his Apiary ; being so feeble, in the 

 Spring, that they are speedily overcome by the moth, and 

 serve, only to breed a horde of destroyers, to assail the rest 

 of his Apiary. The time spent upon them, is often as abso- 

 lutely wasted, as the time devoted to an animal so incurably 

 diseased that it can never be of any service, while by 

 nursing it along, its owner incurs the risk of infecting his 

 whole stock with its deadly taint. If, on the score of kind- 

 ness, he should shut it up, and let it starve to death, few of 

 us, I imagine, would care to cultivate a very intimate ac- 

 quaintance with one so extremely original in the exhibition 

 of his humanity ! 



Ever since the introduction of patent hives, the notion has 

 almost universally prevailed, that stocks must not, under any 

 circumstances, be voluntarily broken up ; and hence, instead 

 22 



