ery convenient
in this business. Any one can make it. Get a piece of narrow hoop-iron,
(steel would be better,) three-fourth inch wide, five inches long;
taper from one side three inches from the end to a point; then grind
each edge sharp; make three or four holes through the wide end, to
admit small nails through it in the handle, which should be about two
feet long and about half an inch square. Armed with this weapon, you
can proceed. Raise the hive on one edge, and with the point of your
sword you may pick a worm out of the closest corner, and easily scrape
all from under the hive with it. Now, _be sure and dispatch every one_;
not that the "little victim" will itself, personally, do much mischief;
but through its descendants the mischief is to be apprehended. Very
likely half of all you find will have finished their course of
destruction, among the combs, and have voluntarily left them for a
place to spin their cocoons. They are worried by the bees, if they are
numerous, until satisfied that it is no safe place among them to make a
shroud and remain helpless two or three weeks. Accordingly, when they
get their growth they leave, get on the board on the bottom, become
chilled and helpless in the morning, but again active by the middle of
the day. Now, if they are merely thrown on the earth, a place there
will be selected, if no better is found, for transformation; and a moth
perfected ten feet from the hive is just as capable of depositing five
hundred eggs in your hive, as if she had never left it.

Several generations are matured in the course of one summer:
consequently, one destroyed at this season, may prevent the existence
of thousands before the summer is over.

This is another subject of theoretical reasoning, and imposition, (at
least in my opinion.) I wish the reader to judge for himself; get rid
of whims and prejudice, and look at the subject candidly and fair; and
if there is no corroborative testimony comes up to confirm any position
that I assume, I shall not complain if my assertions fare no better
than some others. Only defer judgment till you _know_ for yourself.

Bees have ever received my especial regard and attention; and my
enthusiasm may blind my judgment. I may be prejudiced, but will not be
wilfully wrong. I have found so many theories utterly false, when
carried out in practice, that I can depend on no one's hypothesis,
however plausible, without facts in practice to support it. No one
sh