MATERIALS OF HIVES. 31 



The common Dzierzon hive* is long and flat, but, as 

 the combs run fom side to side, instead of from front to 

 rear, the bees, unless the hive is uncommonly well pro- 

 tected, will suffer from cold in Whiter. As the German 

 Apiarian uses slats instead of frames, it would be incon- 

 venient for him to remove any very long combs from his 

 hive. 



The variety of opinions respecting the best materials 

 for hives, has been almost as great as on the subject of 

 their proper size and shape. Columella and Virgil recom- 

 mend the hollowed trunk of the cork tree, than which 

 no material would be more admirable if it could only be 

 cheaply procured. Straw hives have been used for ages, 

 and are warm hi Winter and cool in Summer. The diffi- 

 culty of making them take and retain the proper shape 

 for improved bee-keeping, is an insuperable objection to 

 their use. Hives made of wood are, at the present time, 

 fast superseding all others. The lighter and more spongy 

 the wood, the poorer will be its power of conducting 

 heat, and the warmer the hive in Winter and the cooler 

 in Summer.f Cedar, bass-wood, poplar, tulip-tree, and 

 soft pine, afford excellent materials for bee-hives. The 

 Apiarian must be governed, in his choice of lumber, by 

 the cheapness with which any suitable kind can be ob- 

 tained in his own immediate vicinity. 



I have since preferred to make my hives eighteen and one-eighth inches from front 

 to rear, fourteen and one-eighth inches from side to side, and ten inches deep. Mr. 

 Qninby prefers to make my movable frames longer and deeper. 



* Dzierzon builds hives in structures for two, four, and even many more colonies. 

 On Plate XXII., Fig. 71 (the Frontispiece to the first edition of my work), I have 

 given a representation of a triple hive. The little that can be saved in the first 

 cost of such hives, seems to me to be more than lost by the great inconvenience of 

 handling them. 



t Mr. Wagner informs me that Scholz, a German Apiarian, recommends hives 

 made of adobe in which frames or slats may be used as cheaply constructed, and 

 admirable for Summer and Winter. Such structures, however, cannot be moved. 

 But in many parts of our country, where both lumber and saw-mills are scarce, 

 and where people are accustomed to build adobe houses, they might prove desir 

 nble. The material is plastic clay, mixed with cut straw, waste tow, &c. 



