they are without cowvain of any kind, and completely 
filled with honey. Be : 
Such is the habit of bees in their wild state, and such is 
it also in their domestic state. Instinctively they build 
from the top downwards, and move successively from the 
higher to the lower combs; and precisely in the same man- 
ner should man look for the art of despoiling them, without 
injury: without smoking, castrating, transvasing, or driv- 
ing them. i 
It is evident, that if we intend to rob bees, thus lodged © 
in a hollow tree or cleft rock, without injuring them, we 
must attack their store at the top. There the combs will” 
be easily removed, because the bees have left them, and — 
are busily engaged in the lower part of the hollow or cre- 
vice, and do not even perceive the larceny; nor do they 
suffer by it, because these upper combs become superfluous 
by the new provisions which they instinctively accumulate, - 
in their uninterrupted descending operations. te 
The manner in which the wild bees work in hollow 
trees or in clefts of rocks, is the same as that of domestic 
bees, in their artificial hives or boxes: they always begin 
at the top of the box, and work downward. * 
Here the whole secret of nature is unveiled—how to rob — 
bees without doing them the least injury. From this habit 
of bees in their wild state, I took the hint of forming the 
pyramidal hive, or hive of three stories; by placing, each 
succeeding spring, a box under the preceding one; the 
upper box or story of which, full of honey or wax, without 
ege, larva, chrysalis, or fly, will be every year at the dis- — 
posal of the proprietor. Because the bees have abandoned — 
that upper story, and carry on their labours below 
where the queen mother is stationed with her family and 
young. sh 
This secret, snatched as it were from nature by the — 
work of M. De la Bourdonnaye, whose steps I have fol- 
lowed only to complete his plan, is within the reach of — 
every farmer. It is only necessary, that in the spring, he 
put a new box under the simple hive, that the bees, after — 
having filled the first, may descend and fill the second box. | 
In the second spring, he is to put a third box under the two — 
others, and in the autumn following the upper box is to be 
‘removed. ‘Thus, in each successive spring, he will puta 
‘third empty box under the two others which remained on. 
‘the bench, and in the autumn take a full box from the top. 
7 
he 
j 
nel 
