■^48 GARDEN MANAGEME^'T. 



l^roper size, and covered with a board to keep out the rain : in Apulia, the 

 trunk of the giant fennel is used after clearing away its fungous pith ; in 

 other parts of the South of Europe the bark of the cork-tree is employed, which, 

 being easily separated from its trunk by one perpendicular and two circular 

 sections, forms a hive at once, only requiring the closing of one seam, and the 

 addition of a solid top to keep it steady on its pedestal. Hives of this simple 

 form, or the hollow trunks of trees, afforded, probably, the earliest domicile 

 of domesticated bees. Hasselquist, in his "Voyages and Travels in the 

 Levant," states that the hives in Egypt are made of coal-dust and clay, well 

 blended together, and formed into hollow cylinders of a span in diameter, 

 and from 6 to 12 feet long, which, when dried in the sun, become so hard as 

 to be handled at will, " I saw," says he, " some thousands of the hives at a 

 village between Damietta and Mansora ; they composed a wall round a house, 

 after having become unserviceable in the use they were first made for. " 



1346. The common bell-shaped straw hives are too well known to need 

 remark. For single hiving the nearer they approach in shape to the larger 

 section of a circle, the earlier and the more frequently may the bees be 

 expected to swarm. The Chelmsford and Hertford hives are considered best 

 shaped and best formed. Straw hives have also been contrived for storifying ; 

 in France, these are said to have been invented by Bourdonnaye ; in this coun- 

 try, Wildman has the credit of introducing them. They are called Moreton 

 hives, on account of the form only,— the materials used being reeds, and 

 not straw. Unblighted rye is the best straw for hives, and unthrashed 

 is better than thrashed straw ; for, being smooth and entire, it saves the 

 bees a good deal of trouble, as they always rubble away the rough spicule 

 on the inside of a new hive. ** The best size for a storifying straw hive," says 

 Dr. Bevan, is 9 inches high by 11§ wide at the top, gradually tapering to 10^ 

 inches in the clear. For single hiving on the Grecian plan, the hives should be 

 13.| inches in diameter at the top, and taper gradually downwards to 12^. This 

 size will admit eight bars, which, on the removal of the side-combs, will leave a 

 better supply for the consumption of the family than if the hives were smaller 

 nnd the bars fewer, and afford the owner a prospect of preserving his bees through 

 the winter without feeding. The importance of all bee-boxes being of the 

 same dimensions, has already been dwelt on ; and it is, of course, equally 

 important with respect to straw hives. In making these hives, the lowest 

 round of straw should be begun upon a wooden hoop, the bottom bein^ placed 

 smooth, that it may sit closely to the floor-boards, which, besides making 

 mortar or luting needless, will allow a more easy movement of the slide in 

 the floor-board. Hives on stone or plain boards must, of course, have 

 entrances cut in the wooden hoop, three inches long and three-eighths of an 

 inch high. The hoop should be perforated through its whole course, the per- 

 forations being made in an oblique direction, so distant from each other as to 

 cause all the stitches of the hive to range in a uniform manner. The hoop may 

 be first pierced with a gimlet, and the holes completed by a very small rod of 

 hot iron, introduced froir the inner side of the hoop, so flattened as to make 



