100 COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGES OF WOODEN 



CHAPTER IX. 



COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGES OF WOODEN 

 BOXES AND STRAW HIVES. 



MOST of the writers who have instituted a com- 

 parison between hives and boxes, have decided in 

 favour of the former. But it is to be recollected 

 that when forming this decision, these writers have 

 always had in their minds an out-door apiary, 

 for which situation, on account of their exposure to 

 the variations of temperature and the alternations 

 of drought and moisture, straw hives possess ad- 

 vantages over wooden boxes ; they are not so 

 soon affected by a hot and dry or by a moist at- 

 mosphere ; they do not part with so much heat 

 in winter nor admit so much in summer, straw 

 being, in the language of the chemists, a bad con- 

 ductor of heat. Being much cheaper than any 

 others, straw hives are of course chosen by the 

 cottager. 



Upon the storifying system, and with the ad- 

 vantage of a bee-house, I think wooden boxes 

 have a great superiority over straw hives ; they 

 are more firm and steady, better suited for ob- 

 serving the operations of the bees through the 

 glass windows in the backs and sides, and less lia- 



