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TIIIC HONEY-MAKERS. 
worldly wisdom, and in the improvement of every 
hour, let us not forget our spiritual welfare ; that 
“ now is the accepted time ; behold, now is the day 
of salvation.” 
It was once considered necessary to kill all the 
inhabitants of the hive, or at least to drive the 
swarm to another hive by smoke, in order to re- 
move the honey and the wax ; but the skill of 
man, and a better acquaintance with the habits of 
the bee, have rendered these cruel practices need- 
less. Hives are now constructed so that the hon- 
ey can be removed at pleasure, without injury or 
disturbance to the insects. The beautiful glass 
boxes of honey, which can be seen in almost any 
grocery store, showing so plainly the delicate 
work of the bees, are taken from the newly-in- 
vented hives ; and we can enjoy the delicious 
sweets without the pain of thinking that our pleas- 
ure is at the sacrifice of the comfort and perhaps 
the life of the little toilers which so industriously 
gathered it. 
The poet Thomson, in whose day bees were 
destroyed for the sake of the honey, grows in- 
dignant at the wholesale murder of the insects, 
