The question has been much agitated, whether a hive should be rubbed internally with honey or odoriferous herbs, previously to the swarm being put into it. Some persons use bean stalks for the preparation of a hive, which is something similar to fumigating an apartment with asafetida, as being agreeable to the olfactory nerves of human beings. It is my decided opinion that there exists not any necessity for the preparation of the hive at all.—If the Bees take a dislike to the hive, it is not the odor of the honey of Hybla which will induce them to remain in it; but should the prejudice for the preparation of a hive exist strongly in the mind of any particular individual, I will recommend a liquid to him, which, singular as it may appear, will be found more gratifying to the Bee, and possessing a greater inducement to it to take possession of the hive, than all the odors, real or artificial, which can be administered—and this liquid is—human urine; if any thing will induce a swarm to remain in a hive, it is a copious sprinkling of this liquid—it is a cure for almost every distemper of the Bees—and HUHLEN, the celebrated German apiarian was right when he said, on speaking of this liquid, that no person had any occasion to apply to an apothecary for a medicine for his Bees. – Robert Huish. London, 1820.

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