1 10 THE APIARY. 



bee-keeper has just received the four octagonal boxes, 

 with the bundles of grooved slides (of which there are 

 nearly forty) ; about one half of these slides are sliort 

 pieces, similarly cut to the longer ones. These ard Xh 

 fill up the openings where the slides are not put in, of are 

 required to be withdrawn, as hereafter explained. Hfi' 

 will find himself in possession of four boxes so neatly' 

 dove-tailed on the bevel, that, if he be of a mechanical 

 turn, he will not only be surprised at the way in which 

 they are put together, but also at the price for which they 

 are offered. Three of the boxes, a, b, c, technically 

 called "body boxes," are precisely similar, each being 

 fourteen inches in diameter and five and a half inches 

 deep inside. Nine bars range along the top of eacli 

 box. These are not movable, but are so constructed to 

 induce the correct and regular building of the conibs. 

 The fourth box, d, is the depriving box or super, is only 

 four inches deep, and the "same in diameter as the others. 

 This being the honey-box, it is furnished with seven 

 wide fixed bars, instead of nine, because, as stated at 

 page 93, bees construct deeper receptacles to contain 

 the honey than for breeding in : thus, should the queen 

 go up into this compartment, she may find the cells are 

 too much elongated to enable her to reach the base, 

 when her body is inserted for the purpose of depdsitirig' 

 an €%%. We have too much confidence in her majesty's 

 sagacity to expect her to make such an'attempt in honey- 

 cells thus elongated; doubtless she will only look and 



