periments of Huber, sixty years
ago, developed many facts respecting their origin and economy.
Subsequent observers have added still more to the stock of our knowledge
respecting these wonderful creatures. The different stages of growth,
from the minute egg of the queen to a full grown bee, and the precise
time occupied by each, are well established. The three classes of bees,
in every perfect colony, and the offices of each; their mechanical skill
in constructing the different sized and shaped cells, for honey, for
raising drones, workers, and queens, all differing according to the
purposes for which they are intended; the wars of the queens, and their
sovereignty over their respective colonies; the methods by which
working-bees will raise a young queen, when the old one is destroyed,
out of the larvae of common bees; the peculiar construction and
situation of the queen cells; and, above all, the royal jelly (differing
from everything else in the hive) which they manufacture for the food of
young queens; the manner in which they ventilate their hives by a swift
motion of their wings, causing the buzzing noise they make in a summer
evening; their method of repairing broken comb, and building
fortifications, before their entrances, at certain times, to keep out
the sphinx--all these curious matters are treated fully in many of our
works on bees. But we must forego the pleasure of presenting these at
length, it being our sole object to enable all who follow our
directions, so to manage bees as to render them profitable. In preparing
the brief directions that follow, we have most carefully studied all the
works, American and foreign, to which we could get access. Between this
article and the best of those works there will be found a general
agreement, except as it respects beehives. We present views of hives,
that we are not aware have ever been written. The original idea, or new
principle (which consists in constructing the hive with the entrance
near the top), was suggested to us by Samuel Pierce, Esq., of Troy, N.
Y., who is the great American inventor of cooking-ranges and stoves. We
have carefully considered the principle in its various relations to the
habits of the bee, and believe it correct. To most of our late works on
honey-bees we have one serious objection: it is, that they bear on their
face the evidence of having been written to make money, by promoting the
sale of some patent hive. These works all have a litt