120 THE BEE keeper's MANUAL. 



countrymen make their hives of the best plank, and never 

 less than an inch and a half in thickness. The shape is 

 that of an old-fashioned churn, and the hive is covered on 

 the outside, halfway dovrn, with twisted rope cordage, 

 to give it greater protection against extremes of heat and 

 cold. The hives are placed in a dry situation, directly upon 

 the hard earth, which is first covered with an inch or two ot 

 clean, dry sand. Chips are then heaped up all around. them, 

 and covered with earth banked up in a sloping direction to 

 carry off the rain. The entrance is at some distance above 

 the bottom, and is a triangle, whose sides are only one inch 

 long. In the winter season, this entrance is contracted so 

 that only one bee can pass at a time. Such a hive, with us, 

 as it does not furnish the honey in convenient, beautiful and 

 salable forms, would not meet the demands of our cultiva- 

 tors. Still, there are some very important lessons to be 

 learned from it, by all who keep bees in regions of cold 

 winters, and hot summers. It shows the importance which 

 some of the largest Apiarians in the world, attach to pro- 

 tection ; practical, common sense men, whose heads have 

 not been turned, as some would express it, by modern 

 theories and fanciful inventions. They cultivate their bees 

 almost in a state of nature, and their experience on what we 

 would term a gigantic scale, ought to convince even the 

 most incredulous, of the folly of pretending to keep bees, 

 in the miserably thin and unprotected hives to which we 

 have been accustomed. 



But how, it will be asked, can bees live in Winter, in a 

 hive so closely shut . up as the Polish hive } They do 

 live in such hives, and prosper, just as they do in hollow 

 trees, with only one small entrance. It is well known that 

 bees have flourished when their hives were buried in Winter, 

 and under circumstances in which but a very small amount 



