GUIDE-COMBS. 93 



wax. This is Ijest done by holding a warm poker over 

 the two, and touching it with a hit of wax. The poker 

 should just he warm enough to make the wax drop. If 

 the poker be too hot the wax will boil, and melt the 

 guide-comb as it falls. When the wood and comb are , 

 thus cemented together, the wood is nailed in the crown 

 of the hive — that is to say, fastened by pinning with nails, 

 guiding the bees to build their combs running from back 

 to front. When the combs are so made, the bees can see • 

 the door from the centre of the hive, or anything going in 

 at the door, which they could not do if the combs ran 

 from side to side. But as the sticks run from side to 

 side, the combs aie well supported, and will bear removal 

 from the Land's End to John-o'-Groats without injury. 

 Another advantage of using sticks in hives is this, that 

 the bees, being great economists, use them for cross-lanes. 

 Where the combs cross the sticks, and are fastened to 

 them, the bees leave little holes or doors in the combs, 

 which they use as passages from comb to comb. They 

 thus get shorter journeys for indoor work. In hives with- 

 out sticks, such byways and convenient passages are very 

 rare indeed. 



I may now be excused for saying that it has pained 

 me exceedingly to say some things in this chapter on 

 hives ; for I know they wiU touch the prejudices and 

 stir the feehugs of some bee-keepers whom I do not wish 

 to offend. But if I had not said these things, my own 

 conscience would have condemned me for withholding 

 from a work on the profitable management of bees the 

 deep-seated and honest convictions of my own mind. 

 One gentleman, a manufacturer of hives, has written to 

 me to say, that he will give fne much information on 

 bees if I will only publicly mention " his ten-bar frame 

 hive." Poor fellow ! 



