It sometimes happens that an ill-advised slug or ignorant snail chooses to enter the hive, and has even the audacity to walk over the comb; the presumptuous and foul intruder is quickly killed, but its gigantic carcass is not so speedily removed.

But when they sport abroad, and rove from home, And leave the cooling hive, and quit the unfinished comb, Their airy ramblings are with ease confined, Clip their king's wings, and if they stay behind No bold usurper dares invade their right, Nor sound a march, nor give the sign for flight.

A correspondent in Loudon's Magazine of Natural History, states that in the neighbourhood of Coventry, there is a superstitious belief, that in the event of the death of any of the family, it is necessary to inform the bees of the circumstance, otherwise they will desert the hive, and seek out other quarters.

In Whittier's poem, Telling the Bees, the lover coming to visit his mistress sees the small servant draping the hives with black, and hears her chant: "Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence, Mistress Mary is dead and gone.

They caught bees at three or four different places, tagged them with cotton, filled them with syrup and let them fly, watching till the cotton tufts were lost to view, and by going on the lines till they met they found the hive.

Ladies, stock and tend your hive, Trifle not at thirty-five; For, howe'er we boast and strive.

"It brings the Bill Lang hive and Pete Leddy.

Then he untied his hive and stretched himself out on the grass to rest.

"The young lambs bleat and frisk about, The bees hum round their hive, The butterflies are coming out, 'Tis good to be alive.

The hives should be so ordered under the shelter of a wall that they may not be disturbed nor touch one another when arranged in ranks, for it is the practice to place hives in two and some times three separated ranks, but the opinion is that it is better to reduce the ranks to two than to increase them to four.

Before you are aware the waves of heat have ceased to form a throbbing air-hive for humming insects, and the cool of early twilight has come on, attended by lengthening shadows.

The Bee-man scrambled to his feet, and ran as fast as he could to the place where he had hidden his hive and his old doublet.

This railway did not run through the populous central provinces which can be compared to vast and humming hives of beesand extaordinarily prolific bees.

In spring and summer the bee keeper should inspect each hive at least three times a month, fumigating them lightly, cleaning and throwing out dirt and worms.

On the 9th of February ensuing, I killed the neighboring hives of bees, and found a great quantity of honey, considering the season,which I imagine the stronger had taken from the weaker, and the weaker had pursued them to their home, resolved to be benefited by their labor, or die in the contest.

It was part of her dance to drop from that perch as daintily as a bee-martin way-laying a hive, devour each home-coming word as he devours bees, and flit back and twitter and flutter as a part of all nature's harmony, though in chills of dismay at her peril and yet burning to go to Hilary, from whom this task alone forever held her away.

Then give me thy Princely goll, which thus I kisse, to whom I crouch and bow; But see my royall sparke, this head-strong swarme that follow me humming like a master Bee, have I led forth their Hives, and being on wing, and in our heady flight, have seazed him shall suffer for thy wrongs.

228 So weary bees in little cells repose; But if night-robbers lift the well-stored hive, An humming through their waxen city grows, And out upon each other's wings they drive.

When any one of his numerous family is buried, as the corpse passes out of the house, he carefully loosens every hive, and lifts it up; otherwise, he says, the bees would all die!

" He spent the rest of the day in making a hive of twigs and straw, and, having transferred to this a number of honey-combs and a colony of bees which had just swarmed, he rose before sunrise the next day, and having put on his leathern doublet, and having bound his new hive to his back, he set forth on his quest; the bees who were to accompany him buzzing around him like a cloud.

[Footnote 210: Bee keepers attribute to Reaumur the invention of the modern glass observation hive, which has made possible so much of our knowledge of the bee, but it may be noted that Pliny (H.N. XXI, 47) mentions hives of "lapis specularis," some sort of talc, contrived for the purpose of observing bees at work.

* * Now mind the glorious hive, and see How honesty and trade agree.

The climate at this elevation admits of the making of permanent homes, and by moving the hives to higher pastures as the lower pass out of bloom, the annual yield of honey would be nearly doubled.

What the kindest sign to graft or inoculate in; to open bee-hives, and kill swine.

In the forests of the Amazonian basin they did better because they often shot birds and plundered the hives of the wild honey-bees.