The Honey Bee 1387 



worked from any or all sides, or taken up complete and moved 

 elsewhere. 



Generally, bee houses or sheds should not bo tolerated as it is 

 very inconvenient to handle bees in them and they harbor insect 

 enemies of the bees, such as spiders, wasps, etc., besides incurring 

 a useless expense. There are occasional exceptions to this rule 

 as where an apiary is situated in a locality infested by marauders. 

 In this case a bee house of the style used by Mr. F. B. Loucks of 

 Lowville, N. Y., might be desirable. Continuous benches or 

 stands are open to practically the same objections. 



Hives should stand moderately close to the ground — say from 

 three to six inches — so as to improve their stability when tiered 

 several stories high, and to enable the field bees to more readily 

 gain the entrance in windy or cool weather. They should also 

 be level both ways to give the yard a tidy appearance. 



When the apiary exceeds the maximum in number for profit 

 in a given locality, a portion of the stock should be disposed of or 

 out-apiaries established, subject to the conditions before men- 

 tioned. 



APPARATUS 



Other than hirves, the necessary paraphernalia for conducting 

 an apiary need not be extensive, but should be the best of its 

 class, as the best is none too good. The number of implements 

 should be limited to actual requirements, as simplicity should be 

 the keynote throughout, avoiding perplexity, complication and 

 unnecessary expense. 



HIVES 



"What hive shall I adopt? " is a question of considerable im- 

 portance to the beginner. No beekeeper with any pride in him- 

 self or his business would think of adopting any other than a 

 movable^frame hive, of which there are a variety. Several of 

 these are good, but the most popular one at the present day was 

 invented by the Eev. L. L. Langstroth in 1851, to whom the bee- 

 keepers of this and all other countries owe a lasting debt of 

 gratitude for the invention that is responsible, in the main, for 

 placing bee culture and honey production on the high plane it 

 occupies to-day. 



