The kind of hives of which I have been speaking, are such as have been devised by intelligent and honest men, practically acquainted with the management of bees: as for many of the hives which have been introduced, they not only afford the Apiarian no assistance against the inroads of the bee-moth, but they are so constructed as positively to aid it in its nefarious designs. The more they are used, the worse the poor bees are off: just as the more a man uses the lying nostrums of the brazen-faced quack, the further he finds himself from health and vigor. I once met with an intelligent man who told me that he had paid a considerable sum, to a person who professed to be in possession of many valuable _secrets_ in the management of bees, and who promised, among other things, to impart to him an infallible remedy against the bee-moth. On the receipt of the money, he very gravely told him that the secret of keeping the moth out of the hive, was to keep the bees strong and vigorous! A truer declaration he could not have made, but I believe that the bee-keeper felt, notwithstanding, that he had been imposed upon, as outrageously, as a poor man would be, who after paying a quack a large sum of money for an infallible, life-preserving secret, should be turned off with the truism that the secret of living forever, was to keep well! There is not an intelligent, observing Apiarian who has been in the habit of carefully examining the operations of bees, not only in his own Apiary, but wherever he could find them, who has not seen strong stocks flourishing under almost any conceivable circumstances. They may be seen in hives of the most miserable construction, unpainted and unprotected, sometimes with large open cracks and clefts extending down their sides, and yet laughing to defiance, the bee-moth, and all other adverse influences. Almost any thing hollow, in which the bees can establish themselves, and where they have once succeeded in becoming strong, will often be successfully tenanted by them for a series of years. To see such hives, as they sometimes may be seen, in possession of persons both ignorant and careless, and who hardly know a bee-moth from any other kind of moth, may at first sight well shake the confidence of the inquirer, in the necessity or value of any particular precautions to preserve his hives from the devastations of the moth.