70 
BEE-CULTURE. 
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peculiarities of their hive embrace just what is wanted to 
successful culture ; but are often like the bee-keepers them- 
selves, who in their fertile imaginations think they have dis- 
covered the ne plus ultra in bee-keeping, but when put in 
practice they find won’t do — there was something they had 
overlooked. No wonder that many have grown out of 
patience, both with their own and other people’s inventions. 
I must say a large amount of the abortive attempts at im- 
provement would have been avoided, had the peddlers and 
the bee-keepe«i generally possessed the reliable information 
that can be had from books now published on that subject. 
Some, growing out of patience say: “I do not want any of 
your contrivances — give us a natural bee hive. ” But what 
is a natural bee hive ? “ One they will go to if left to them- 
selves — as a hollow tree.” In this region where timber is 
tall they choose the hollow tops of trees; in the West, where 
the timber is scrubby, they enter the lower end. Tn coun- 
tries where they have no timber they enter boxes, empty 
hives or kegs. They have been known to go into the cupola 
of a building, the walls of a frame house, or the dried carcass 
of a lion. Which of these is the natural bee hivo ? Sup- 
pose we give all of our domestic animals their natural shelter 
from storms, it will evidently possess one essential good 
quality — that of always having plenty of fresh air. But I do 
not wish to become too natural, lest I should turn my horse 
wild in the woods, and do my farming by hand and my own 
traveling by foot. So soon as wc begin to manage bees at all 
we begin to be artificial. 
WHAT ARE SOME OP THE DEVICES FOR HIVES. 
In some countries they excavate a hole in the side of a tree. 
In Cuba they use inverted sugar-troughs, Hives have been 
made dear and cheap; of straw, wood, and earthenware. 
They have been made large and small, single aud double, tall 
and low, oblong, square, triangular, hexagonal, and round ; 
in sections on top of each other, or sitting side by side, that 
bees could pass from one to another, so that swarms could be 
made by lilting a top hive from a lower one, or a side hive 
from one joining it ; some with inclined bottom boards to 
clean the hive ; others suspended without bottoms at all ; 
some with honey boxes of various structures and materials 
