Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/171

Rh matters of no little moment. It would far exceed our prescribed limits to attempt a description of the multitude of hives that the ingenuity of one class of Bee-masters has invented, and another has improved upon. We shall, therefore, notice those only that are in general use, and those which, from their great utility, deserve to be better known. Straw Hives, of the common bell-shape, with all their imperfections, will continue in use, because they are easily made and cost little—because the handling of them requires little skill—and because, as long as the suffocating system is persisted in, they answer the purpose well enough. It would be desirable, however, that more pains were bestowed on their form. To concentrate the heat—to retain it, and thus to accelerate the hatching of the brood, on which so much depends, no shape in our opinion is so well adapted as the globular. We would therefore recommend straw-hives to be made in the form of a globe, having the third of its diameter cut away. (See Pl. XX. fig. 1.) Perhaps, the cycloidal shape would answer nearly as well, and would be probably more easily made. (Fig. 2.) In either of these forms, one rod of three-fourths of an inch thickness, forced through the hive at right angles to a line drawn from the entrance, and about an inch higher up than the centre, would be sufficient to support the combs, because the mouth of the hive being of less diameter than the centre, the combs, from their wedge-like shape at the lower extremity, would not be so apt to sink down by their own weight. We may mention