Pt OF THE PYRAMIDAL, OR THREE-STORIED 
BEE-HIVE. 
An Improvement of the Hive of M. De la Bourdon- 
nuye, by adding a Third Story. 
CHAPTER I. 
ON THE INVENTION OF THE PYRAMIDAL HIVE. 
sine 
/ From the earliest antiquity, zealous bee raisers have 
successively formed different systems for the management 
of those insects; but hitherto no one has discovered the 
‘solution of the problem, how to rob them of their annual 
produce without destroying them in whole or in part. In 
fact, no one has found out the means of annually profiting 
‘by the labours of these precious insects, without the pre- 
liminary of a total or a partial destruction, by smoking, 
castration, or driving,—all of which destroy a large por- 
tion, and often the whole of the cowvain, as also the colony 
itself. ; 
Making minute observations on the instinct and archi- 
tecture of these insects, and following methodically the 
_ steps of M. De la Bourdonnaye, in his experiments on his 
hive, I discovered the secret of nature—how to obtain 2 
complete annual harvest of the products of bees, without 
causing them the smallest prejudice. 
When the bee, in a wild state, selects a retreat in the 
hollow of a tree or cleft of a rock, it always fixes on the 
upper part of the hollow or cleft, to build and suspend its 
combs. These edifices, bound and suspended to each other, 
always wrought from the top downward, and never from 
the bottom upward,—are continued descending, as long as 
the bee finds empty space to work in. e 
‘The bees, continually and invariably labouring down- 
ward, abandon their first made combs above, and occupy 
the new built combs below, where the queen mother, hay- 
ing also descended, deposits her new couvain, under the 
guardianship of the whole colony. In the second year, 
therefore, there are no dees in the upper tier of combs; 
