There are few persons, who are managers of Honey-Bees under the old hive system, who, if they have not seen a comb constructed and suspended in the manner just described, have not, however, beheld these little creatures, when oppressed with the internal heat of their crowded domicil, and straitened for want of room in it, unhappily clustering and hanging at the door, or from and under the floor-board of their hive, in a ball frequently as large as a man's head, and sometimes covering all the front part of it, for sixteen or twenty days together; and this, be it remarked, at the season of the year which is the most profitable for their labours in the fields and among the flowers. During this distress of the Bees in, or belonging to, such a hive, their labours are of necessity suspended,--their gathering of honey ceases,--ceases too at the very time that that saccharine substance is most plentifully secreted by the vegetable world. And---why? Because they want an enlargement of their domicil,--an extension of the dominion, or (if it may be so termed) of the territory of the Queen; by which enlargement swarming is superseded, and the Royal Insect relieved from the necessity of abdicating her throne, retains it, continues and extends the propagation of her species, and of course increases the busy labours of her innumerable subjects. _This accommodation is provided for Bees in my collateral-boxes._ Ancient as well as modern Bee-keepers have frequently adopted the plan of eking, that is--placing three or four rounds of a straw-hive (called an eke) under their hives. This method of enlarging a hive does in many instances prevent swarming during that one season. Notwithstanding, from all that I can see in it, it tends only to put off the evil day, and to accumulate greater numbers of Bees for destruction the following year. This is certain, because on minute examination of the pavilion of nature, we find an increase of wealth, as well as an increase of numbers in the state; but there is no provision or contrivance in the common hive for dividing the wealthy produce of the labours of those numbers: eking will not do it,--eking enlarges the hive, and that is all it does; consequently to get at their honey, the necessity for destroying the Bees follows, and the suffocating fumes of brimstone at length bring these worthies to the ground--to the deadly pit in which they are first suffocated, then buried, and are, alas, no more! a few minutes close the existence of thousands that had laboured for their ungrateful masters; and their once happy domicil becomes a scene of murder, of plunder, and of devastation, which is a disgrace to Bee-masters, and ought by all means to be discountenanced and discontinued. Assuredly Bees are given to us by the gracious Giver of all good things for a better purpose than that of being destroyed by thousands and by millions. Are we not instructed by the sacred writings to go to the Bee and to the ant,