OBSERVING HIVES. 439 



ways be shown, and in the other the process of rearing 

 young queens, from worker-eggs. These miniature hives 

 may be stocked by putting into them a comb containing eggs 

 and hatching workers, taken with all the bees adhering to it, 

 from any movable-comb hive ;• or a small after swarm may 

 be hived in them. If the bees are brought from a distance, 

 they need not be confined. Gardners having the movable- 

 comb hives, might supply their patrons with observing hives, 

 with profit to themselves, and great satisfaction to those who 

 employ them. 



An observing hive, where there is a family of children, 

 will prove an unfailing source of pleasure and instruction ; 

 and those who live in crowded cities, may enjoy it to the 

 full, even if condemned to the penance of what the poet 

 has so feelingly described as an " endless meal of brick." 

 The nimble wings of these agile gatherers, will quickly 

 waft them above and beyond " the smoky chimney pots," 

 and they will bear back to their city homes, the balmy spoils 

 of many a rustic flower, " blushing unseen," in simple yet 

 bewitching loveliness. Might not their pleasant murmurings 

 awaken in some the memory of long forgotten joys, when 

 the happy country-child, listened to their soothing music, 

 while intently watching them in that old homestead garden, 

 as they bore to their hives the many colored pellets on their 

 burnished thighs ; or roved with them amid pastures and hill'- 

 sides all redolent with the sweetest clover, gathering the 

 flowers still rejoicing in their " meadow-sweet breath,"' or 

 whispering of the precious perfumes of their forest homei 



" To me more dear, congenial to my heart, 

 One native charm than all the gloss of art ; 

 Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play. 

 The soul adopts and owns their first-born sway ; 

 Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, 



* See directions for forming a nucleus, p. 216^. 



