210 
TIIE HIVE AND HONEY-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 elevate frames, one at a time, into a case with glass 
bo that they may he 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 smoke “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 the bees 
to fill themselves with honey (p. 27), when all their combs may be safely lifted out. 
A 11 uber-hive, or one with movable bars, may bo much more safely managed 
than any one which proposes to elevate the frames, with .at permitting them to be 
pushed apart (p. ISO). A single hive, the arrangeme> s of which arc such as to 
maim and irritate boos, Is more to bo dreaded in u» Apiary than a thousand of 
proper construction; as it educates bees to regard * ieir keeper in the light of an 
enemy. 
On p. 15, I have spoken of the bar-hive, as at ‘east one hundred years old. 
From “ A Journey into Greece, by Gcorgo W hosier, Esq.,” made in 1675-6, it 
appears that it was, at that time, in common use t*\ero, and, probably, even then an 
old invention ; he describes how it was used for forming artificial swarms, and re¬ 
moving spnrc honey. As the new swarms W'*rc made by dividing the combs be¬ 
tween two hives, and no mention is made ••< giving the quccnless one a royal cell 
—those old observers were probably acquainted with the fact that they could rear 
one from the worker-brood. Huber -uys:-“ Monticclli, a Neapolitan Professor, 
claims thut the plan of artificial swa-ming was borrowed from Favignana, and that 
the practice is so ancient th.it evo ihe Latin names are preserved by the inhabi¬ 
tants in their procedure.” 
