238 
THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 
the devouring pest. Ever since their introduction, the 
notion has almost universally prevailed that stocks must 
not, under any circumstances, be voluntarily destroyed; 
and hence, thousands of colonies, which, under the old 
system, were mercifully killed, are now left to perish by 
slow starvation, while thousands more are so feeble in the 
Spring that they serve only to breed a host of moths to bo 
the pest of the Apiary. 
The truth is, that improved hives, without an improved 
system of management, have done, on the whole, more 
harm than good. In no country have they been so exten¬ 
sively used as in our own, and no where has the moth so 
completely gained the ascendency. Just so far as they 
have discouraged ordinary bee-keepers from the old plan 
of “ taking up” their weak swarms in the Fall, just so far 
have they extended “ aid and comfort” to the moth. 
Some of them might, unquestionably, be so managed as, 
in ordinary cases, to protect the bees against the moth ; 
but no hive which does not give the control of the combs, 
can be relied on for all emergencies. As for many of the 
complicated contrivances, which have been devised by 
men ignorant of the first principles of bee-keeping, and 
the “swindle-traps” of sharpers, who, to fill their own 
pockets, would be glad to kill all the bees in the world, 
they not only afford no more security against the moth, 
than the old box-hive, but are full of fixtures, which, serve 
no end but to annoy the bees and multiply lurking-places 
for moths and worms. The more they are used, the 
worse the condition of the bees ; just as the more a man 
uses the nostrums of the lying quack, the farther he gets 
from health.* 
♦ An intelligent man Informed me that he paid ten dollars to a “ bee-quack* 
professing to have an infallible secret for protecting bees Against the moth. Aftor 
parting with his money, and lenrning that this secret consisted in u always keep¬ 
ing strong stocks,” he felt that ho had boon as grossly imposed upon, ns i£ aftoi 
