1882-83.] Edinburgh Naturalists Field Club. yi) 



sincerely hope that this unmitigated and unnecessary barbarity 

 will soon be an action of the past, for now wherever Bee-societies 

 are established, there are always members who will willingly, on 

 being allowed the insects for their trouble, drive them for the 

 cottager, instead of destroying them, and even pay him some trifle 

 for the Bees so driven. 



The. places selected by Bees in their wild state for habitations 

 are hollow trees and holes in rocks ; and I have known many in- 

 stances where swarms have located themselves under the tiles or 

 slates of houses, and remained there for years ; and I once hived a 

 swarm in Wiltshire, which issued from a disused chimney. Some 

 cousins of mine, who settled in Illinois forty years ago, established 

 their apiary in the following manner : — Having discovered a strong 

 colony of Bees in a hollow tree, they in the evening plugged up the 

 entrance, sawed off the top, and afterwards the root, and then 

 shouldered the portion containing the Bees, and stuck it upright 

 in their garden, and as swarms issued hived them in the usual 

 way. How different is the state of things now in Illinois, for tliat 

 state is quite in the van of Bee-culture, the only weekly publication 

 on the subject in the world being published at Chicago. 



Various materials have been, and still are, used in the construc- 

 tion of hives. Virgil mentions the bark of trees, and the slender 

 Willow twigs twisted together. In Northern Africa hives in gene- 

 ral use are made of earthenware, very like our drain-pipes, one end 

 being blocked up, and a small hole left in the other : these are 

 stacked one upon another, so that a number of hives would occupy 

 a small space. Straw and wood are, however, the common materials 

 used in all temperate climates, and it is still an open question 

 which is preferable. Straw is a good non-conductor of heat, but not 

 so durable as thick wood ; and now, with all advanced Bee-keepers, 

 wood seems to be preferred. I have often thought that cork, or 

 wood with a cork lining, would be very suitable, cork being a good 

 absorbent of moisture, and good as a non-conductor ; and I see hives 

 with a cork lining have very recently been advertised for sale. In 

 a recent number of the Journal, mention is made of a hive of 

 plaster of Paris, the invention of a Scotchman, a Mr Paterson of 

 Struan, who says Bees winter well in it, and that it is a panacea 

 for all winter troubles in this climate. 



The forms in which hives have been constructed are almost end- 

 less, depending much on the system adopted — such as the colla- 

 teral one of placing boxes beside each other, on a level, with com- 

 munication from one to the other, or piling them vertically as supers 

 or nadirs. Warder tells us that a Mr Gedde was the first man in 

 this country who made hives of wood, and he was granted a patent 

 for his invention by King Charles II. 



Nutt's collateral bee-boxes were much used in England thirty 



