ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 
209 
old-fashioned bee-keeper can, with movable combs, destroy 
his faithful laborers quite as speedily as by setting them 
over a sulphur-pit ; thus preserving his honey from dis- 
gusting fumes, while he secures it on frames from which 
it may be conveniently cut, and preserves all empty comb 
for future use (p. 7l). 
As many who would like to keep bees are so much 
afraid of being stung, that they object entirely even to 
natural swarming, how, it may be asked, can such persons 
open hives, lift out the combs, shake or brush off the bees, 
and practice other processes which seem like bearding a 
lion in its very den ? The truth is, that some persons are 
so timid, or suffer so dreadfully when stung, that they are 
every way disqualified from having anything to do with 
bees, and ought either to have none upon their premises, 
or to entrust the care of them to others. With the direc- 
tions furnished in this treatise, almost any one, however, 
by using a bee-dress, can learn to superintend bees with 
very little risk. I find, in short, that the risk of being 
stung is really diminished by the use of my hives ; although 
it is very difficult for those who have not seen them in use, 
to believe that this can be so. 
The ignorance of most bee-keepers of the almost un- 
limited control which may be peaceably acquired over 
bees, has ever been regarded by the author of this treatise 
as the greatest obstacle to the speedy introduction of 
movable-comb hives. He might easily have invented con- 
trivances which, by adapting themselves to this ignorance, 
would, at first, have proved much more lucrative to him, 
had he thought it just, either to the community or to 
himself, to have taken such a course. Such ignorance has 
led to the invention of costly and complicated hives,* 
* I have before me a small pamphlet, published In London In 1851, describing 
the construction of the “Bar and Frame Hive” of W. A. Munn, Fsq. Tho object 
