MOVABLE-FRAME HIVES. 177 



358. In closing this chapter on hives, we cannot refrain 

 from advising the beginners in bee-culture to be very cau- 

 tious in buying patent hives. More than eight hundred pat- 

 ents on bee-hives and implements have been issued in the 

 United States from 1873 to 1890. Not ten of these have 

 proved to be of any use to bee-keepers. The mention of 

 this fact will suffice to show the small value of these 790 pat- 

 ents, and the loss incurred by those who have bought them, 

 before they were able to judge of their merits. 



Materials for Bee-Hives. 



359. The variety of opinions respecting the best mate- 

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

 of their proper size and shape. Columella* and Virgil rec- 

 ommend 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 in Winter and cool in Summer. The difficulty of 

 making them take and retain the proper shape for improved 

 bee-keeping, is an 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. Cedar, poplar, tulip-tree, 

 and especially soft pine, afford excellent materials for bee- 

 hives. The Apiarist must be governed, in his choice of lum- 

 ber, by the cheapness with which any suitable kind can be 

 obtained in his own immediate vicinity, and by its lasting 

 qualities. 



Scholz, a German Apiarist, 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 



* Columella, about the middle of the first century of the Christian 

 Bra, wrote twelve books on husbandry — "De re rustica." 



