30 
THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 
of them in tlieir most important hearings, is essential to 
all who would realize Large profits from improved methods 
of rearing bees. Those who will not acquire the neces¬ 
sary information, if they keep bees at all, should manage 
them in the old-fashioned way, which demands the small¬ 
est amount of knowledge and skill. 
I am well aware how difficult it is to reason with bee¬ 
keepers, who have been so often imposed upon, that they 
have no faith in statements made by any one interested 
in a patent hive; or who stigmatize all knowledge which 
does not square with their own, as mere “ book knowl¬ 
edge ” unworthy the attention of practical men. 
If any such read this book, let me remind them that 
all my assertions may be put to the test. So long as the 
interior of a hive was to common observers a profound 
mystery, ignorant or designing men might assert what 
they pleased of what passed in its dark recesses; but now, 
when every comb can in a few moments be exposed to 
the full light of day, the man who publishes his own con¬ 
ceits for facts, will speedily earn the character both of a 
fool and an imposter. 
The Queen-Bee, as she is the common 
mother of the whole colony, may very 
"properly be called the mother-bee. She 
reigns most unquestionably by a divine 
right, for every good mother ought to be a 
queen in her own family. Her shape is 
widely different from that of the other bees. 
While she is not near so bulky as a drone, her body is 
onger ; and as it is considerably more tapering, or sugar- 
loaf in form than that of a worker, she has a somewhat 
wasp-like appearance. Her wings are much shorter in 
proportion than those of the drone, or worker ; the under 
part of her body is of a goldt i color, and the upper part 
