238 miner's AMERICAN 



APIARIES IN THE ROOMS OF DWELLINGS. 



It is a practice with some people, to have their hives 

 placed in an upper room of their dwelling, with tubes or 

 other channels for the bees to obtain egress and ingress. 

 This plan may answer very well in large towns, where 

 no yard-room exists ; or in cases of having a hive or 

 two, kept more as a source of amusement than of profit ; 

 but in no case can bees be brought into one's dwelling, 

 or any out-house not built expressly for them, and prove 

 prosperous in the long run. They will thrive a short 

 period, in spite of all the disadvantages under which 

 they labor, and finally, they are " non est inventus," as 

 the constable says, when he returns his writ unexecuted. 

 As for preventing the ravages of the bee-moth, by at- 

 tempting to get up out of her reach, you might as well 

 attempt to get out of the reach of the fowls of the air, 

 by ascending heavenward. The practice of thus con- 

 fining bees in the rooms of dwellings, is highly injurious 

 on account of not affording a plenteous infusion of pure 

 air in, and around the hives, which is so vitally essential 

 to all animate nature. Think not, reader, because a bee 

 is but a small insect, that she needs not the necessity of 

 breathing heaven's pure ether, like unto man. Though 

 "man is fearfully and wonderfully made;" yet the same 

 Architect that formed man, also formed the bee, and 

 with the same master-hand. Let not frail mortals usurp 

 a high distinction in the wonderful mechanism of their 

 frame, over that of a little bee; for, we find no less to 

 excite our amazement in the one, than we do in the 



