stores by dishonest courses. Bees are,
however, much more excusable than the lazy rogues of the human family;
for the _bees_ are idle, not because they are indisposed to work, but
because they can find nothing to do. Unless there is some gross
mismanagement, on the part of their owner, they seldom attempt to live
upon stolen sweets, when they have ample opportunity to reap the
abundant harvests of honest industry. In this chapter, I shall be
obliged, however much against my will, to acknowledge that some
branches of morals in my little friends, need very close watching, and
that they too often make the lowest sort of distinction, between "mine
and thine." Still I feel bound to show that when thus overcome by
temptation, it is almost always, under circumstances in which their
careless owner is by far the most to blame.

In the Spring, as soon as the bees are able to fly abroad, "innatus
urget amor habendi," as Virgil has expressed it; that is, they begin to
feel the force of an innate love of honey-getting. They can find nothing
in the fields, and they begin at once, to see if they cannot appropriate
the spoils of some weaker hive. They are often impelled to this, by the
pressure of immediate want, or the salutary dread of approaching famine:
but truth obliges me to confess that not unfrequently some of the
strongest stocks, which have more than they would be able to consume,
even if they gathered nothing more for a whole year, are the most
anxious to prey upon the meager possessions of some feeble colony. Just
like some rich men who have more money than they can ever use, urged on
by the insatiable love of gain, "oppress the hireling in his wages, the
widow and the fatherless," and spin on all sides, their crafty webs to
entrap their poorer neighbors, who seldom escape from their toils, until
every dollar has been extracted from them, and as far as their worldly
goods are concerned, they resemble the skins and skeletons which line
the nest of some voracious old spider.

When I have seen some powerful hive of the kind just described,
condemned by its owner, in the Fall, to the sulphur pit, or deprived
unexpectedly of its queen, its stores plundered, and its combs eaten up
by the worms, I have often thought of the threatenings which God has
denounced against those who make dishonest gains "their hope, and say
unto the fine gold, Thou art my confidence."

In order to prevent colonies from attempting to rob, I always exam