HIVES AND BOXES. 27 



CHAPTER VI. 



HIVES AND BOXES. 



The old straw, conical-shaped hive is too well known to need 

 description, and is too unprofitable to be worthy of it. I may 

 merely observe, that its mode of management was simple enough, 

 consisting only in leaving the bees to themselves until autumn, 

 then inserting brimstone matches into the hive, suffocating its 

 miserable inhabitants, and taking, perhaps, 15 or 16 lbs. of very 

 bad honey, smelling foully of sulphurous acid gas, and full of the 

 dead bodies of its ill-requited producers. When, about midsum- 

 mer, the temperature of the hive increased to such a degree 

 as to become insupportable to the inmates, they swarmed, as it 

 was called, that is to say, the queen took her departure, accom- 

 panied by a certain number of her subjects, to seek a more 

 roomy residence. 



The main objections to this old system of management are, its 

 inhumanity, its absurdity, and its unprofitableness. What could 

 be more inhuman than killing the poor things unnecessarily, for 

 the sake of their produce ? What would be said, did we kill 

 the cow for her milk, or calf, or the hen for her eggs ? Indeed, 

 to nothing can I compare this practice more aptly than to the 

 man in the old fable, who killed and cut open his goose, in order 

 to come at her golden eggs. What can be more absurd than to 

 destroy in mere wantonness the lives of multitudes of creatures 

 that, if permitted to live, would be ready to resume work for you 

 the following spring ? and in what is its absurdity shown so 

 plainly as in its unprofitableness ? What signify ten or fifteen 

 pounds weight of honey, or even thirty pounds weight to be 

 produced by a single stock in a season — and that, too, when 100 

 lbs. weight will be furnished, provided only that you take advice 

 — and that honey, moreover, of superior quality, pure, crystal- 

 line, and limpid ? — very unlike the foul produce of a dirty straw 

 hive, copiously clogged with the bodies of your murdered bene- 

 factors. 



The chief objects to be effected by the use of a suitable re- 

 ceptacle for your bees are — 



First — The power of depriving your bees of their honey at 

 pleasure, and without injury to them. 



