bke-keeper's manual. 305 



room enough for the larvae to become fully developed, in 

 their natural size and vigor. This hypothesis I must 

 dissent to ; notwithstanding it is heresy to do so. Who, 

 among my readers, has compared the size of bees, in 

 different hives, and found some a dwarf race, while the 

 tenants of the other hives were of the full, natural size ? 

 Perhaps some among you have imagined that you could 

 discover a difference, and so have I, but on close in- 

 spection, I found that I was mistaken. I have a hive, 

 in which the bees have resided during ten years, and 

 not a particle of difference in the size of its tenants 

 from those of other hives, can be perceived. An ac- 

 quaintance of mine assured me, some few years ago, 

 that he had a family which had inhabited the same hive, 

 from generation to generation, twenty-nine years, with 

 no difference in the size of its occupants from those of 

 other domicils. 



It is my opinion, that the cause of deterioration, is 

 not as above stated ; but in consequence of the black- 

 ened and vitiated state^ of the combs, rendering the 

 atmosphere within impure, and having more or less 

 lodgments of the moth to eradicate, from year to year, 

 until the effluvia of the combs operates to the injury of 

 breeding, and through that cause, to the final destruc- 

 tion, in some cases, of the family. Be that as it may, 

 we know that on the fourth or fifth year, it is best to 

 effect a change. How that is to be done is the next 

 question. The " subtended" plan will not answer, for 

 reasons already given ; but if we choose to take the 

 lives of our bees in the old way of using brimstone, we 



