114 DR. miller's 



but sometimes a single advantage counts for much. A man with 

 his head on has the single advantage over the one with his head 

 cut off that he still has his head on ; but that is a considerable ad- 

 vantage. The one advantage that the movable-frame hive has 

 over the box-hive is that the frames can be taken out and put 

 back again. But that advantage is of no value to those bee- 

 keepers who never lift out the frames from one year's end to the 

 other. If I had no notion of ever lifting out a frame I would pre- 

 fer box-hives. 



Possibly you may want to know what advantage there is in 

 being able to lift out frames. For one thing, you can tell by lifting 

 out the frames whether a colony is queenless or not, and if it is 

 queenless you can remedy it. Witli a box-hive it is practically im- 

 possible either to detect or to cure queenlessness. Tliat one dif- 

 ference between the two kinds of hive is enough to decide in 

 favor of the movable-frame kind, provided one intends to take 

 advantage of the movable feature. It would be a pretty long story 

 to tell all the things that can be done with a movable-frame hive 

 that cannot be done with a box-hive, among which are examina- 

 tion for disease and treating for the same, introducing queens, 

 strengthening weak colonies by giving frames of hatching-brood, 

 etc. I jl 



Q. Please give me some advice on what kind of hives to use. 



A. Opinions differ as to what is tlie best hive. Some are par- 

 tial to this or that particular hive which the majority of bee- 

 keepers would hardly take as a gift. The greater number, how- 

 ever, perhaps nine out of every ten, would tell you to take the 

 10-frame dovetailed hive. You can hardly go amiss on that. But 

 please remember that the hive does not make very much differ- 

 ence in the work of the bees. A good colony of bees will store 

 just as much honey in an old-fashioned straw hive as it will in 

 the most up-to-date hive. But it makes a big difference to the 

 beekeeper whether the hive is such that he can easily get at the 

 honey and perform the various manipulations that he may think 

 necessary. 



Q. What are the dimensions of an 8-frame Langstroth hive 

 and super? Also the frames? 



A. Some of the dimensions of the 8-frame hive have varied 

 from time to time, but I'll give you what I think will generally 

 be found today: 



Length, inside measure, 18)4 inches; width, 12}^; depth, 9}i; 



