and tts Economic Management. | 215 
which has its stock chamber raised from the floor, and is 
allowed free ventilation within the outer case. 
The position I have taken up in regard to 
Plenty of Air both in Summer and Winter 
in connection with large hives and frames, is confirmed 
in a very decided manner by an experience related by 
Mr. Chas. Dadant, in the American Bee Journal of 
December 26th, 1895. This champion of large hives, 
and the largest frame in use (the Quinby), states that a 
bee-keeper he once visited “had five or six hives in a 
covered apiary facing south. Those hives were placed 
upon strips made of I-inch timber, two inches wide, and 
nailed edgewise on stakes driven into the ground, so as to 
form a sort of rack. The hives had no bottom boards, for 
our friend thought that bees succeeded best when they had 
plenty of air. . . . Strange to say, colonies in these 
hives wintered successfully, and we were very much 
astonished, in one of the hardest winters, to find that he 
had not lost a single colony, while our losses had been 
heavy.” 
There is nothing at all strange about the bees doing well 
with no floor boards. For many years past I have been 
trying to get bee-keepers to adopt an empty chamber under 
the actual stock, both Summer and Winter. The reports 
that come in show conclusively that the deep space under 
the stock is the only means of keeping the hive cool in 
Summer, and thoroughly dry all’ Winter without the least 
draught through the cluster, which actually hangs in a 
dense mass below the combs during the severest weather. 
Thus 
A perfect Winter Arrangement 
of the combs is secured in the manner already shown with 
reference to the description of the Conqueror hive, which 
