166 OBJECTIONS OF MR. DUNCAN REFUTED. 



ridicule the utility of this protecting machine on the ground 

 that the robber, if he pleases, can carry away the hive and 

 the whole apparatus, with apparently little trouble. Now we 

 will inform Mr. Duncan, that it was in his native land that 

 we first found it necessary to protect our hives from the 

 depredations of the nightly robber, for there was scarcely a 

 season that we did not lose four or five of our best stocks 

 by pillage ; but we never lost one when the machine was 

 affixed to it. The only implements which the robbers of 

 hives carry with them are a tinder box and some bundles 

 of matches ; and in order to obtain possession of their in- 

 tended booty, they have simply to apply the ignited sulphur 

 underneath the hive, and the property becomes their own. 

 In order, however, to obtain possession of a hive with our 

 machine affixed to it, they must bring with them a bunch of 

 skeleton keys and a saw, and it is not very probable, that a 

 thief who has planned the robbery of an apiary, would come 

 provided with those implements, when he supposes, that a 

 light and a little sulphur would be all sufficient to accom- 

 plish his design. 'A robber would find it no easy task to carry 

 off a hive with the machine affixed to it; for independently 

 of his not being able to suffocate the bees, the weight of the 

 hive, added to that of the pedestal and the machine, would 

 prove almost an insurmountable obstacle to its removal. 



We however recommend that the board on which the 

 hive is to stand, should be nailed to the pedestal in a very 

 firm manner, but rather slanting towards the front, that a 

 fall may be given to the rain, and thereby obviate the danger 

 of any humidity to the hive. We have often seen that the 

 board on which the hive stands has been made of such thin 

 unseasoned wood, that it becomes warped as soon as the 

 warm weather sets in. This circumstance, trifling as it may 

 appear at the first view, has been often attended with very 

 serious consequences to the hive, for if its whole circum- 

 ference does not rest on the board, the open parts grant 



