Q. “Why, Mr. B., you seem to know as much about bees as the man I heard a neighbor speak of. He said there was a man living in Iowa that reared king bees (perhaps you would call them queen bees) of a superior and different kind from the common bee, and brought from some other country.” B. “Yes, we rear our own queens, or in other words we cause the bees to do so, by our artificial process. This we do for the purpose of furnishing fertilized queens to old stocks, when their queens are taken away, as is the case in producing artificial swarms.” Q. “Then you can make bees swarm, and rear queens at your will?” B. “Yes.” Q. “But do you never find a hive that is not in the notion of swarming? I always thought that bees knew when they wanted to swarm, better than man did.” B. “Bees have only instinct, and were not intended in the beginning to produce their own swarms. They were created for the benefit of man, and if that had been the way swarms were intended to be made, they would be made in conformity with natural laws that govern them, and swarming would always be successfully performed in perfection. Man was given knowledge, by means of which it was intended he should manage his bees in his own way, independent of any will they may have. The penalty for man’s neglect in this respect is the loss of his bees in various ways--such as swarming and departing to parts unknown, loss of queen, extermination by robbing, &c. Man, therefore, endowed with knowledge and judgment, knows more of the management, for his benefit, of the internal parts of the hive, than the bees, with mere instinct, can possibly know.” Q. “I perceive, sir, that these are the days of our ignorance spoken of in Holy Writ, though I was never able to see it till now. Some of my neighbors, a few years ago, purchased bees which were in common boxes and gums. They brought them home and set them down in a remote corner of the yard or garden, to live or die, as they might or could, with no attention whatever, except when the time came to secure some of their delicious stores, which, with shame I confess, is the practice in all the neighborhood now.” B. “Your statement is only too true, if indeed the facts are not worse.” This is a fair specimen of the questions asked by common bee-keepers.