This confirmed the proof of the important fact gained the preceding year,--namely--that ventilation and the means of dividing the treasures of the Bees, by taking off a glass or a box of honey,--or, if necessary, by taking off both a glass and a box, set aside the necessity for swarming. On all occasions, under this practice, a proper temperature may be supported in a colony; and in all critical points, by a just observation of the state of the thermometer, Bees may be relieved and assisted, and all the mischiefs attending the old mode of management may be guarded against and prevented. For when adequately relieved and properly assisted, they proceed to rid the colony of all embryo Queens, which would only become so many supernumeraries in a hive where the reigning Queen is fertile, and the necessity for emigration is superseded. But, unless Bees could be made to understand that accommodation will be extended to them at the proper time, they, guided by _their_ sense of their situation--not by ours--naturally and wisely provide _their own means_ of relieving themselves; and in so doing frequently bring forth what afterwards become supernumerary Queens, which are invariably destroyed and cast out of the colony, as soon as the Bees are sensible that they have no occasion for them. And, whenever a royal nymph or a virgin Queen is thus cast out, swarming need not be apprehended. CHAPTER XIV. BEE-FEEDING. Neglected generally, as is the management of Bees by their cottage possessors, there is no part of it less attended to, nor more slovenly performed, when performed at all, than that of feeding. The cottager commonly takes up, as he terms it, his best hives for the sake of the treasures they contain, or are supposed to contain. This is destroying Bees because they are rich! He also takes up the lightest and poorest--of course the late swarms--and those that are the least likely to live through the winter; because if he get from one of these but two or three pounds of honey, though he seldom gets so much, and a few ounces of wax, he thinks that that is all clear gain: and, if he get neither honey nor wax, he, at any rate, gets rid of the _expense_ and _trouble_ of feeding _his good-for-nothing swarms_, which, in his opinion, however fed, would never come to any good. A pennyworth of brimstone will do the job at once, and is more easily paid for than a pound of sugar, and after that another, and perhaps another. Such is the reasoning, and calculation, and cruel practice of the generality of cottage Bee-keepers! Such is the destruction annually dealt out to hundreds of poor swarms, and thousands and millions of _poor_ Bees!! I do from my heart pity and deplore the untimely fate of these suffocated, innocent, valuable insects. To destroy Bees because they are rich is a _barbarous_ practice, and ought by all means to be discountenanced and discontinued;--to destroy Bees because they are poor and may need support, is cruel---is