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 objections which have been urged against it. I have never read the beautiful verses of the poet Thompson, without feeling all their force: "Ah, see, where robbed and murdered in that pit Lies the still heaving hive! at evening snatched, Beneath the cloud of guilt-concealing night, And fixed o'er sulphur! while, not dreaming ill, The happy people, in their waxen cells, Sat tending public cares; Sudden, the dark oppressive steam ascends, And, used to milder scents, the tender race, By thousands, tumble from their honied dome! Into a gulf of blue sulphureous flame." The plain matter of fact however, is, that in our country, as many bees, if not more, die of starvation in their hives, as ever were killed by the fumes of sulphur. Commend me rather to the humanity of the old-fashioned bee-keeper, who put to a speedy and therefore merciful death, the poor bees which are now, by millions, tortured by slow starvation among their empty combs! At the present time, (April 1853,) I am almost daily hearing of swarms which have perished in this way, during the last Winter; and I know of only one person who was merciful enough to kill his weak stocks, rather than suffer them to die so cruel a death.