BEEHIVES AND 

 BEE KEEPERS' APPLIANCES. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION I A BAR-FRAME BEEHIVE. 



BEE keeping has long been a science, and it took 

 its greatest step towards that position when the 

 bar-framed hive superseded the primitive straw 

 skep. The bee keeper can now regulate the affairs 

 of the bees' household, arrange their marriages, the 

 strength of their forces, the proportion of males to 

 females, and their comfort in summer and in winter. 

 He partakes of the fruits of their labour, and causes 

 them to obtain far more honey than their natural 

 instinct would prompt. All these powers, and 

 several others, date from the invention and per- 

 fection of the bar-framed hive. Before that time, 

 from ten to twenty pounds of honey were consumed 

 by the bees in manufacturing one pound of wax, 

 and as honey and wax were about the same price 

 then, it was evidently a loss of about two thousand 

 per cent, to the bee keeper. The idea struck some- 

 body that if he gave the bees a lump of wax, they 

 might be induced to utilise that and save the honey, 

 but they would not touch it. Then he thought of 

 reducing the wax to thin sheets, but the bees would 

 not touch it even in that condition. The next step 

 was to impress the foundation of the cells upon the 

 sheet of wax, and the bees were found to take 

 kindly to it in this condition, to draw it out into 

 perfect combs for brood and honey. The modern 

 bee keeper, therefore, supplies his bees with sheets 



