i52 



GARDEN MANAGEMENT. 



•with very little distm-bance to the bees ; all annoj'auce from the removal being 

 prevented by having an assistant at hand to whiff a little tobacco into the hive 

 at the moment of removal. The guide-comb must be fixed in hne with and upon 

 the centre of the bar. 



1350. The bar-hive system is strongly recommended by Dr. Bevan, and 

 perfected by Mr. Golding. It usually consists of a pair of boxes ; the lower 

 one being the stoch-liive, or usual residence of the family, and breeding-place 

 of the queen or mother-bee, and which need rarely be disturbed. The other 

 is for the purpose of affording the bees occasional additional storing-room, and 

 is termed the super-hire; its place being over the other. The boxes are]of 1-inch 

 wood, 11| inches square withinside. The stock-hive is in inside height,. 

 including the bars, 8g inches. Making deduction for the bars, these dimen- 

 sion gives a shallow hive, but adapted for the health of the bees. It is evident 



that in the use of bars the bees are more 

 constrained in their building operations 

 than where they are free to follow their own 

 inclinations as to the position and mode of 

 communication from comb to comb. In the 

 Amateur's Bar-hive this dilemma is met by 

 a passage from one part of the hive to 

 another. For the space of two inches, at 

 each extremity of the upper side of the 

 bars, they are cut out horizontally through 

 half their thickness. In this way a gallery 

 is formed all around the upper part of the dwelhng, not only as a means of 

 equal ventilation and temperature, but as offering facility in the removal of 

 the bars. A cover nearly an inch thick, clamped at the ends, and projecting 

 on all sides half an inch, is fixed down close over the bars with two or three 

 long screws. Our engraving shows the cover lifted above its box, in order to 

 exemplify the arrangements thus described. 



1351. A groove of about an eighth of an inch deep, and 5^ inches wide, is 

 recessed out of the cover, running in the same direction as the bars ; within 

 the part so sunk four holes, 3^ inches long and half an inch wide, are cut 

 through, laterally, two at each end ; their position being on the two sides of 

 the centre bar. These two sets of openings must be so situated as to leave a 

 clear space in the centre of the cover of 2i inches ; and they form the oommu- 

 nication between the lower and upper box. To stop this, when required, two 

 slides or dividers are introduced into the recess, one at each end : these are 

 made of strong well-flattened zinc. The dividers are 6h inches long, and an 

 eighth of an inch less in width than the recess, to work easily ; their outer 

 extremity is a little turned upwards for convenience. When in their places, 

 the dividers will meet in the centre, their turned-up edges coming in contact 

 with the super-box. 



1352. Bee-keeping, which, in this country, is an insignificant branch of rural 

 economy, forms, in most continental countries, a honey-manufactory on a 



