THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 93 



ments of the largest as well as the smallest colony without the use 

 of dummies, or the handling of frames, and without giving too much 

 room at one time. Third — ^It affords a horizontal bee space between 

 €ach two divisions of the brood chamber, affording free communica- 

 tion for the bees and queen to all parts of the brood nest through 

 the warmest part of the hive, enabling them to have their brood in 

 a compact form in early spring, thus economizing heat and guarding 

 against the chilling of brood. Fourth — When it is desirable to spread 

 the brood all that is necessary is to interchange the divisions of the 

 brood chamber, placing the empty combs at the top in the warmest 

 part of the hive, thus enabling the bees to extend the brood nest 

 upward in the warmest part of the hive instead of downward into 

 the coldest part. Fifth — If artificial increase is desired all that is 

 necessary is to separate the two divisions, removing the one that 

 contains the most brood to a new location and give a queen to the 

 one that starts queen cells. This may be determined by glancing 

 up between the combs from the bottom. Sixth — The queen may be 

 restricted to one-half the brood chamber by means of a queen ex- 

 cluder placed between the two divisions. Seventh — The brood 

 frames and section frames as well as the extracting frames of a 

 properly constructed sectional hive are of the same dimensions and 

 may be used interchangeably, likewise the supers may be used as 

 brood chambers and vice versa. 



TKi: BX3AI>VAI7TACi:S. 



The disadvantages of sectional hives as we see them are, first, 

 there are times when it is imperative that frames should be handled. 

 At such times these hives are placed at a disadvantage on account 

 of their numerous frames, as well as by the inconvenience of 

 handling closed end frames in a close fitting hive. The latter 

 objection may be overcome by the use of hanging frames in regular 

 standard deep supers, and we recommend these in preference to 

 closed end standing frames. In actual practice we seldom inter- 

 change the divisions of the brood chamber for purposes above men- 

 tioned, and we are not sure that bees build up more rapidly in these 

 hives. 



After a close observance during the past three seasons with a 

 view of ascertaining the truth of the matter we have about come 

 to the conclusion that a medium to light colony will show more 

 brood early in the season in a full depth hive than in a sectional 

 hive. In strong colonies the dift'erence is not so noticable. To 

 overcome this objection we usually place light colonies on top of 

 strong ones early in the spring, separating them by a queen ex- 

 cluder, and we regard this as the best way to build up weak colonies 

 in time for clover harvest. We are using sectional hives side by 



