much want of success; and they, who witness the ill fortune of their neighbours, are naturally deterred from engaging in a pursuit, which appears to them so full of trouble and vexation; with nothing more than a precarious chance of remuneration for their pains.

An improved system of management in this, as in every other branch of rural economy, must not be expected to become general on the sudden. A good example should be set by the gentry, who have opportunities of acquiring the requisite information; they should be communicative of their knowledge to those who wish to learn; and there can be little doubt that the peasantry will ultimately adopt what they see and feel to be a better method than their own. There is fortunately inherent in the very nature of man, a salutary dislike of innovation, which not only tends firmly to hold together the general frame of society, but continually preserves the mass of mankind from being deluded by the many futile, and not a few dangerous, schemes, which projectors of all kinds are ever calling upon the public to patronize. Yet it must at the same time be confessed, that the progress of improvement has been, and is, by this means retarded, though the evil is greatly counterbalanced by the good; for whilst error is beaten down by opposition, truth becomes established; it is mighty and will prevail. That system or doctrine, whether of husbandry, of philosophy, of religion, or of government, which has won its way to general acceptation, through a general conviction of its goodness, is set upon a firm foundation, it has stood the test, and can hardly be overturned but by a better.

The treatise of Mr. Huish is divided into thirty-two chapters, in which he appears to have omitted nothing that relates to the history or management of bees. He frequently engages in the discussion of questions, that have been the subjects of dispute to writers of this class in almost every age, and determines them with a tone of confidence, that could only proceed from twenty years experience" of the nature and habits of these wonderful insects.

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His zealous attachment, indeed, to this pursuit for so long a period, has enabled him to collect much useful information on the subject; some of which we shall take the liberty of communicating to our readers, in the extracts we are about to lay before them. The construction of a habitation for the reception of bees, is of primary importance, especially with a view to the spoliation of their combs, without destroying the eolony; and the hive, described in the following passage, ap

pears to be every way better adapted to that purpose, than the one which is commonly used in the country.

My first object (says Mr. Huish) was to select those materials which I judged most suitable for the construction of a hive, and after repeated experiments on the various materials, I was convinced that there was none more proper than straw. This I know is deenied by Huber, but I must be allowed in this instance to differ from that celebrated apiarian. The shape of the hive was my next consideration. I had been so often defeated in my expectations in the deprivation of the common straw hive, and especially by the sticks with which they are necessarily furnished to prevent the combs from falling, that I was persuaded it was a shape fitted only for those persons who suffocate their bees, but to the deprivator it was the most inconvenient and unmanageable form that could be suggested. It was a flower-pot which first gave me the idea of the shape, and which appeared to possess peculiar advantages. It would, in the first place supersede the necessity of sticks; for the combs then acting like a wedge, being larger at the top than at the bottom, could not fall on the board. This was one great difficulty overcome; but then the impossibility of extracting the combs from the bottom of the hive presented itself; for upon the same principle that the combs acting as a wedge would prevent them falling down, so it would be impossible to extract them from the bottom, as they would be smaller there than at the top. One only method therefore presented itself of extracting the combs from the top, but this I knew could not be effected, were the combs all constructed on one basis, which is the case in the generallity of hives. I therefore set my invention at work to devise a method by which each comb could have its separate foundation; but I was aware of the perverse and untractable temper of the insects under my management, and that from the very spirit of opposition, which, were I inclined to be severe, I might say arises from their being under the government of a female, they would not construct their combs in the particu→ lar manner consonant to my wishes. I had tried a hive on the principle of Huber, and I found that, notwitstanding the scien tific and philosophical elucidation of Mr. John Hunter, that an edge forming a salient or even a returning angle, determined the foundation of the combs of the bees: they had nevertheless disregarded this principle, and had worked in the interstices between the frames. To give to each comb its own foundation was not a matter of any great difficulty; but in what manner the bees were to be prevented from working in the interstices, and at the same time to be forced to work on the foundation prescribed to them, cost me some little pains to determine. It suggested itself to me that a bee will never work on an unstable foundation; and, therefore, that I should succeed in my design, if I could insert my net-work between the pieces of wood. Having obtained

eight pieces of well seasoned wood, about three inches broad, and half-inch thick, I laid them equi-distant on the top of the hive, and having fastened them to the outer projecting band which serves as their basis, I covered them with net-work, over which I placed a circular board the whole size of the hive. Thus were the bees to attempt to fasten their combs in the interstices they would find the net-work, which being an infirm foundation, would oblige them to construct the combs on the single boards. I had, however, now given to my hive a flat top, which I knew was injurious to my bees, as it prevented the evaporation of the steam arising from their bodies. To obviate this, I made six holes in the circular board, which was placed upon the net, and which I closed with plates of tin, perforated with small holes. The whole I covered with a convex cover of straw, manufactured in the same manner as the hive; the interior form of which faci litates the flowing of the vapours down the sides of the hive; and the exterior form prevents any rain from lodging on it. This cover is well plastered down, to prevent the admission of any light into the hive. At any time or season, when I require some honey-comb, or at the end of the season, when I deprive my bees of their superfluous store, I open the top, and take the side→ boards out, from which having cut the honey-comb, I replace them in the hive, and it facilitates the operation to have some vacant boards ready to supply the places of the full ones. This operation is very easily and speedily performed; it has the advantage of not disturbing the middle combs, and I have often deprived these hives of their honey without the loss of a single bee, excepting those few who were foolish enough to leave their sting in various parts of my dress. In the month of August, 1810, I obtained from one of these hives, eighteen pounds of beautiful honey-comb; by the end of September the void was again filled, and I extracted ten pounds more, leaving sufficient to supply them through the winter."

The principal advantages offered by the above hive are, the opportunity which it gives of easily inspecting the state of its interior, the facility of extracting a portion of the combs, for the purpose of making room when the hive is crowded, and of taking a due share of the produce, and the means which it affords of preserving the lives of the bees from year to year. But in order to be satisfied of the advantage of attempting to preserve their lives, we ought to see reason for believing that the natural duration of the life of a bee is extended beyond a year; this is a point which has hitherto been involved in considerable obscurity: though on many accounts it seems probable, and from the following observations almost certain, that a bee may live at least three or four years, if not prematurely destroyed. Mr. H. says,

CRIT. REV. VOL. III. January, 1815.

G

"I can positively affirm, that the same queen has inhabited a hive for four years, and it is proved by the following circumstance;-in the spring of 1809 I had occasion to feed one of my hives, and in the evening when I took the plate from the hive, to my great mortification, I found the queen apparently dead, having been drowned in the liquid. I hastened with her to the house, and by the dint of as much attention as was ever bestowed by the most Philanthropic Member of the Humane Society, in recovering a drowned man, I succeeded in restoring my valuable patient to life. The act, however, which I committed, during the syncope of the queen, might be followed with great advantage in certain countries, for I clipped the wings of royalty, and then with a slight mutilation returned her to her longing subjects. This queen belonged to a strong second swarm of that year, and I clipped her wings for the purpose of ascertaining on the following year whether the old queen or a new one departed with the swarm. In the year 1810, after the swarm had departed from the hive, I drove the bees from it, and I found my mutilated queen still in the possession of her original kingdom. In the year 1813, I had occasion to unite a weak swarm to this hive, and in joining them I discovered my old mutilated friend again. This same hive was, however, from some particular cause, forsaken in the following year, and the fate of my quondam friend the queen remains to this day a secret to me .I however ascertained the fact, that a Queen Bee can live four years, and I draw the conclusion that a common Bee could live the same period, were it not exposed to particular dangers, exterior to the hive.'

It is recommended that each hive should rest upon a separate stool, supported by a single pedestal; and in case of need, a chain and padlock may be so applied as to secure our property from the attacks of a dangerous two-legged depredator. To guard against the invasions of the numerous other enemies of the bees, a great degree of vigilance is required: every thing should be removed which can facilitate their approach to the hives; yet, in some parts of England, it is said, the hives are placed extremely low, and, as it were, to assist the mice, toads, and other enemies of the bees, a piece of board is placed gradually inclining from the opening down to the ground. We know not what the ladies will think of the author, on reading the ensuing passage, and a former one of the same nature; he certainly seems to entertain but an unfavourable opinion of the

sex.

"In Sussex (he proceeds to tell us) this plan is generally adopted, and as I once passed through that country I stopped at several cottages where I saw the above plan adopted, and reasoned with the proprietors on the injury which must necessarily arise to their bees, by an adherence to such an injurious practice; but

to my great mortification, the hives generally belonged to, and were under the management of the female part of the family, who were so much devoted to the old method of managing bees, that they literally looked upon me as a person who knew nothing about the business, and my ignorance was greater in proportion as my advice departed from the long established customs of the country."

For the destruction of mice, the author keeps constantly round his apiary some traps of a very simple kind. A pea is soaked in water, and then strung upon a thread which is tied to a small stick at each end; these are fixed in the ground at the exact distance of the width of a brick, the brick is then placed on the thread, and the mouse coming to eat the pea, gnaws also the thread, and the support of the brick being then taken away, it falls and kills the mouse.

About the time of swarming, the young queen is said to make a particular noise, similar to chip, chip, which is distinctly heard two or three nights preceding the swarming. Respecting this circumstance we find it observed in a note, that

"The capability of the queen to utter any noise has been much doubted; on this subject the Abbe della Rocca relates a curious anecdote. A person, not very skilful in the management of bees, was appointed to deprive a hive of a part of its honey, and in the operation he wounded the queen. She immediately issued a most plaintive cry, and the bees attacked instantaneously all the spectators, and the animals in the vicinity. A horse of the Archbishop was by chance tied to a tree contiguous to the apiary, and it was attacked with so much fury, that it broke the reins, and took refuge in a country house; but the bees pursued it with so much acrimony, that it mounted the stairs of the first story, and burst into a room full of company, to whom he was, no doubt, an unwelcome visitor."

The author himself, on one occasion, saw a swarm alight upon the muzzle of an ass, which was tied to an adjoining post; "the patience of the animal could not brook the strangers, and it began to rub its muzzle on the ground. The indignation of the swarm was roused, and the animal was so stung that it died in three days. The swarm was consequently lost to the proprietor."

The value of a swarm is estimated by its weight; the best swarms are from five to six pounds: larger than these are not desirable, as they impoverish the parent hive too much. “Five thousand bees weigh about a pound; a good swarm consists therefore of about 20,000 bees." In this estimate it is not said whether the bees were weighed with their honey-bags full