246 FOREIGN INVENTORS OF HIVES. 



of those experiments, which are said to be the result of the 

 examination or the inspection of the interior of a hive, and 

 which could not have been accomplished without the admis- 

 sion of light. 



We are speaking within compass when we say, that above 

 a hundred hives have been invented, some being modifica- 

 tions or improvements of preceding inventions, and others 

 professing to be wholly original. There was not however 

 one of these inventions, which did not establish its claim to 

 general approbation on the ground of its superiority, whether 

 for the extraction of the combs, the augmentation of the 

 produce, the promotion of the fecundity of the queen, or the 

 increased facility of obtaining a more correct knowledge of 

 the natural history of the bee. 



The English cannot lay claim to any great merit for their 

 ingenuity in the construction of hives ; those of Wildman, 

 White, Keys, Thorley, and others, being all mere modifica- 

 tions of the hives invented by the French and German 

 apiarians, and to which in many instances, the character 

 even of an improvement could not be attached. In France, 

 the following naturalists have signalised themselves in the 

 construction of their hives, some of which are founded on 

 good and sound principles of practice, whilst others can 

 only be stigmatized as some wild abortions of an exuberant 

 imagination. Amongst the most scientific artists, we may 

 enumerate amongst the French, Feburier, Duchet, Palteau, 

 De La-bourdonnaye, Bosc,Eloi,de Boisjugan, Ricour, de Mas- 

 sac, Montfort, Martin, Beville, Caignard, Ducouedic, Lom- 

 bard, &c. In Germany, Engel, Cuingheim, Rompel, Humel, 

 Wentzel, Riems, Kastner, Schirach, Herold, Steinmetz, 

 Neidhart, &c. In Italy, Falchini, Gil. In the Archipelago, 

 PAbbe della Rocca, and in Switzerland, Huber, Gelieu, and 

 Vicat. 



We will give a brief analysis of the most ingenious of these 



