THE EVOLUTION OF THE BEE-HIVE. 191 



I have ever seen or heard of, and the discoverers did wisely in 

 securing a photograph of it. 



Bees at work in the open, as there shown, must have been 

 the first step in the direction of the bar-frame hive of to-day. In 

 bee-nests so built the combs are attached to sticks. In some cases 

 these sticks are horizontal, or nearly so, as before shown. 



A bee-keeper of keen observation and a little in advance of 

 his brethren finding a comb so constructed, i.e., in the open, and 

 removing it for the sake of its honey, or perhaps to secure the 

 bees, and finding the combs built on parallel sticks could not be 

 otherwise than struck with the convenience of so constructing a 

 hive when removing the bees home on the sticks whereunto the 

 combs were attached, if only for exhibition purposes. Under such 

 circumstances, what great amount of thought would be needed to 

 place them in a box and so work them. The arrangement of othei 

 straight sticks would be only a sequence of the first discovery. 



The bar-frame, as I have already said, was not the invention 

 of any one person. It has developed stage by stage. The first 

 idea, as I have already pointed out, was revealed to man by 

 Nature. Finding that bees in a state of nature always built their 

 combs parallel, and having discovered honey combs built on 

 sticks, the idea of a top bar would naturally suggest itself. The 

 selection of the straightest sticks for trial purposes was as natural 

 as the removal of the combs found on sticks in a state of nature 

 and carried to an artificial bee home. Finding that these straight 

 sticks arranged parallel on the top of a box, were utilised by the 

 bees for the purpose of fixing their combs thereto, and that the 

 honey could be more readily obtained than when the bees worked 

 in boxes according to their own will — what would be more natural 

 than to follow up this first idea? It is much more simple 

 to obtain straight sticks or slots artificially than to find them in a 

 stato of nature. These slots were another step towards perfection, 

 followed by their resting on rebates or grooves, so that the whole, 

 with the bees, could be enclosed as within a box. There was an 

 advantage in this. The bees attached their combs to these slots, 

 but the combs were fixed to the sides of the hive, and both sides 

 had to be cut away before the combs could be removed. There 

 appears to be no record of the person who first removed the combs 

 built on sticks in the open or of the individual who introduced 

 these movable slots. The very slight advantage obtained by their 

 use never became general, and the reason is not intricate to dis- 

 cover. To arrange sticks or slots so true and parallel as is neces- 



N 



