n to him, as he
gravely informs you that he cannot tell how it is, but corn with him has
all "run out." He manages it precisely as his father or grandfather
always managed theirs, but somehow the pestiferous weeds will spring up,
and he has next to no crop. Perhaps you can hardly conceive of such
transparent ignorance and stupidity; but it would be difficult to show
that it would be one whit greater than that of a large number who keep
bees in places where the bee-moth abounds, and who yet imagine that
those plans which answered perfectly well fifty or a hundred years ago,
when moths were scarce, will answer just as well now.

If however, the old plan had been rigidly adhered to, the ravages of the
bee-moth would never have been so great as they now are. The
introduction of _patent hives_ has contributed most powerfully, to fill
the land with the devouring pest. I am perfectly aware that this is a
bold assertion, and that it may, at first sight, appear to be very
uncourteous, if not unjust, to the many intelligent and ingenious
Apiarians, who have devoted much time, and spent large sums of money, in
perfecting hives designed to enable the bee-keeper to contend most
successfully against his worst enemy. As I do not wish to treat such
persons with even the appearance of disrespect, I shall endeavor to show
just how the use of the hives which they have devised, has contributed
to undermine the prosperity of the bees. Many of these hives have
valuable properties, and if they were always used in strict accordance
with the enlightened directions of those who have invented them, they
would undoubtedly be real and substantial improvements over the old box
or straw hive, and would greatly aid the bee-keeper in his contest with
the moth. The great difficulty is that they are none of them, able to
give him the facilities which alone can make him victorious. No hive, as
I shall soon show, can ever do this, which does not give the complete
and easy control of all the combs.

I do not know of a single improved hive which does not aim at entirely
doing away with the old-fashioned plan of killing the bees. Such a
practice is denounced as being almost as cruel and silly as to kill a
hen for the sake of obtaining her feathers or a few of her eggs. Now if
the Apiarian can be furnished with suitable instructions, and such as he
will _practice_, for managing his bees so as to avoid this necessity,
then I admit the full force of all the obj