210 
THE IIIVE AND IIONEY-BEE. 
all the ingenuity and expense lavished upon which, are 
known, by the better informed, to be as unnecessary as a 
costly machine for lifting up bread and butter, and gently 
pushing it into the mouth and down the throat of an 
active and healthy child. 
The Rev. John Thorley, in his “ Female Monarchy ,” 
published at London, in 1744, appears to have first intro- 
duced the practice of stupefying bees by the narcotic 
fumes of the “ puff ball ” ( Fungus pulverulentus ), dried 
till it will hold fire like tinder. The same effect has 
been produced by pushing a rag, saturated with chloro- 
form or ether, into the entrance of the hive, and closing 
all tight, to prevent the escape of the fumes. The bees 
soon drop motionless from their combs, and recover again 
after a short exposure to the air. 
Some of my readers may suppose that such an easy 
mode of stupefying bees would very greatly facilitate the 
of this invention is to clovate frames, one at a time, into a case loith glass si-*es, 
so thut they may be examined without risk of annoyance from the bees. Great 
ingenuity is exhibited by the inventor of this very costly and very complicated 
hive, who seems to imagine that smoko “must be injurious both to the bees and 
their brood.” Even if a little smoke is so injurious, the Apiarian, by sweetened 
water, or by drumming upon a hive, after closing its entrance, can cause tho bees 
to fill themselves with honey (p. 27), when all their combs may be safely lifted out. 
A Huber-hive, or one with movable bars, may bo much more safely managed 
than any one which proposes to elevate tho frames, witKmt permitting them to ho 
pushed apart (p. 150). A single hive, tho arrangoine> & of which are such os to 
maim and irritate bees, is more to be dreaded In a> Apiary than a thousand of 
proper construction ; os it educates bees to regard > *eir keeper in the light of an 
enemy. 
On p. 15, I have spoken of tho bar-hivo, as at 'east one hundred years old. 
From “A Journey into Greece, by George Wheeler, Esq.,” made in 1G75-6, it 
appears that it was, at that time, in common use **vero, and, probably, even then an 
old invention ; ho describes how it was used for forming artificial swarms, and re- 
moving spare honey. As the new swarms w»*ve made hy dividing tho combs bo- 
tweon two hives, and no mention is made << giving the queenless one a royal cell 
— those old observers wore probably acquainted with the fact that they could rear 
one from the worker-brood, llubcr *ays:— “ Montlcclll, a Neapolitan Professor, 
claims that the plan of artificial swa’mingwas borrowed from Favlgnana, and that 
tho practice is so ancient that ovo ihe Latin names aro preserved by the inhabi- 
tants in their procedure.” 
