Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/230

226 than the generous feelings of the delighted Naturalist. No doubt, reasoning analogically, we have the same right to destroy our bees, without being liable to the charge of inhumanity, as we have to take the life of our sheep or oxen. Both were designed for our use, and if the death of the animals is necessary to give us the full benefit of what was originally intended for our service, there is no inhumanity in fulfilling the designs of nature. At the same time, our humane feelings must be at a very low ebb indeed, if we can make use of this right without some degree of pain and regret, when the object to be sacrificed to our benefit has been to us a source of innocent enjoyment; nay, it may be reasonably expected, that the interest we feel in that object, will not only prevent us from destroying it wantonly and unnecessarily, but will induce us anxiously to inquire whether the barbarous alternative may not be avoided in perfect consistency with our real advantage.

Now, it is as clear as day, that the advantage of the owner is best consulted by saving the lives of his bees; because, independent of the satisfaction of eschewing the odious task of sacrificing what we have long watched with so much anxiety, and contemplated with so much admiration, the conservative system yields as large, if not a larger produce than the destructive, with this additional advantage, that the honey is not deteriorated by the unwholesome fumes of the sulphur made use of in suffocation;