NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HONEY-BEE. 
61 
unpatented liive, the pretended right to use which is 
fraudulently sold to the cheated purchaser.* 
Apiarians, unaware of the brevity of the bee’s life, ha.e 
often constructed huge “bee-palaces” and large closets, 
vainly imagining that the bees would fill them, being una- 
ble to see any reason why a colony should not increase 
until it numbers its inhabitants by millions or billions. 
But as the bees can never at one time equal, still less 
exceed, the number which the queen is capable of pro- 
ducing in a season, these spacious dwellings have always 
an abundance of spare rooms. It seems strange that men 
can be thus deceived, when often in their own Apiary 
they have healthy stocks, which, though they have not 
swarmed for a year or more, are no more populous in 
the Spring, than those which have regularly parted with 
vigorous colonies. 
It is certain that the Creator has wisely set a limit to 
the increase of numbers in a single colony; and I shall 
venture to assign a reason for this. Suppose he had given 
to the bee a length of life as great as that of the horse or 
the cow, or had made each queen capable of laying daily 
some hundreds of thousands of eggs ; or had given several 
hundred queens to each hive ; then a colony must have 
gone on increasing, until it became a scourge rather than 
a benefit to man. In the warm climates of which the bee 
* Hives which have never been patented have been extensively sold as patent 
articles by men, who for years havo boon liable to prosecution for obtaining money 
under false pretences. Others aro disposed of, on the ground that the patent is 
still pending, when no application for a patent has ever been made, or has long 
ago been rejected. Often the patented part of a hive, being a worthless conceit, is 
carefully concealed, while much ingenuity is displayed, in exhibiting those fea- 
tures in the hive which any one has a right to use ; and yet, which the vendor, 
sometimes by implication, and sometimes by direct assertion, leads the purchaser 
to believe are essential ports of tho patent. 
No one should ever purchase a “patent hive," until ho ascertains two things: 
1st, that there is really a patent on the invention ; and 2d, that the part patented 
is, in his opinion, worth to him the monoy asked for the right to use it. 
