Bees have been known to construct combs under the floors of the hives, when restricted for room within. Here their natural activity surmounted the impediments thrown in their way, by the want of inclosed space. The storifying or colonizing plan has been much applauded for its saving the lives of the bees: though this preservation be well worthy of attention, yet it is an advantage very inferior to that which is derived from the œconomical division of labour, the consequent increase of wax and honey, and the facility afforded for extracting them. I trust that this remark will not expose me to the imputation of inhumanity, for I am fully sensible of the value of life to all creatures that exist, and have often felt strongly the force of Thomson’s pathetic description of the sulphurous death of bees.
“Ah! see where robb’d and murder’d in that pit
Lies the still heaving hive! at evening snatch’d.
Beneath the cloud of guilt-concealing night,
And fix’d o’er sulphur...
“Sudden the dark oppressive steam ascends.
And, us’d to milder scents, the tender race
By thousands tumble from their honey’d dome,
Convuls’d and agonizing in the dust.”
The bee is generally allowed to be a short-lived insect. (Vide [Longevity of Bees].) Whatever advantage can be derived however, from preserving the lives of the bees, at the period of taking their honey, those, who keep them upon the storifying plan, will have the full benefit of it, and be spared that torture of feeling, which the sensitive always experience, when destroying life in any way.
“True benevolence extends itself through the whole compass of existence, and sympathizes with the distress of every creature capable of sensation. Little minds may be apt to consider a compassion of this inferior kind, as an instance of weakness, but I consider it as affording undoubted evidence of a noble nature.”—Melmoth.
[CHAPTER XV.]
SYMPTOMS WHICH PRECEDE SWARMING.
“See where with hurry’d step, th’ impassion’d throng
Pace o’er the hive, and seem with plaintive song
T’ invite their loitering queen; now range the floor,
And hang in cluster’d columns from the door;
Or now in restless rings around they fly,
Nor spoil they sip, nor load the hollow’d thigh:
E’en the dull drone his wonted ease gives o’er.
Flaps the unwieldy wing, and longs to soar.”