may be made at any part of the hive. The ends of the cut straw-bands may be secured by stitches of packthread, or, what is better, with softened mole snap wire, and the panes of glass may be fastened with putty.

Out-door hives should have a protection not only of straw caps, but of a shed also, which if made open in front only, would afford much shelter against driving rains and high winds; but the most complete shed is made with folding or sliding doors at the back, and is closed at the sides, and in front, with the exception of such openings be necessary for the entrance of the bees

as may and for their accommodation in bad weather. This shed renders hackels unnecessary, and is adapted either to storifying or single hiving. In the annexed plate is a back view of it, with hives arranged in different ways.

CHAPTER IX.

COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGES OF WOODEN BOXES AND STRAW HIVES.

MOST of the writers who have instituted a comparison between hives and boxes, have decided in favour of the former. But it is to be recollected that when forming this decision, these writers have always had in their minds an out-door apiary, for which situation, on account of their exposure to the variations of temperature and the alternations of drought and moisture, straw hives possess advantages over wooden boxes ;--they are not so soon affected by a hot and dry or by a moist atmosphere; they do not part with so much heat in winter nor admit so much in summer, straw being, in the language of the chemists, a bad conductor of heat. Being much cheaper than any others, straw hives are of course chosen by the cottager.

Upon the storifying system, and with the advantage of a bee-house, I think wooden boxes have a great superiority over straw hives; they are more firm and steady, better suited for observing the operations of the bees through the glass windows in the backs and sides, and less lia

ble to harbour moths, spiders, and other insects; they permit the combs, at the period of deprivation, to be more easily separated from the sides and tops, and if well made, have a much neater appearance than straw hives.

CHAPTER X.

LEAF HIVES.

NARROW hives, with large glazed doors on each side, have been recommended by apiarian writers, for exposing the operations of bees. That of REAUMUR was too wide: it allowed the construction of two parallel combs, by which of course, the apiarian was precluded from making any useful observations, upon the proceedings of the bees, in their interspace. BONNET recommended the use of a hive, the doors of which should be only so far asunder as to allow the building of one comb between them. This suggestion was successfully adopted by HUBER; and to prevent the bees from building short transverse combs, instead of a single one, parallel to the sides of the hive, he laid the foundation himself, by fastening a piece of empty comb to the cieling of the box.

HUBER'S glass doors had only an interspace of an inch and half betwixt them: in this hive the bees could not cluster upon the surfaces of the comb, and yet had room to pass freely over it. Mr. JOHN HUNTER recommended the diameter of these narrow hives to be three inches, and the superficies of the sides to be of sufficient size to

Mr. DUN

afford stowage for a summer's work. BAR, with his mirror hive, constructed somewhat like Huber's, has been able to make some interesting observations on the œconomy of the bee. Vide Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, vol. iii. The distance of his glass doors from each other is one inch and two thirds; the height and width of the hive, according to the plan in the Journal, about a foot. Across the centre of the mirror hive Mr. Dunbar introduced a light frame, which though apparently dividing the hive into four compartments, allowed the bees a free passage: they were skreened from the light by a pair of folding shutters on each side.

Mr. Dunbar hived a small swarm in one of these narrow boxes, in June 1819: the bees began to build immediately, and he witnessed the whole of their proceedings, every bee being exposed to his view. The narrowness of their limits constrained them, from the very commencement, to work in divisions, so that four separate portions of comb were begun and continued nearly at the same time.