332 THE BEE-KEEPER’S MANUAL. 
become semi-transparent, losing their solid white character, 
much to the disadvantage of the appearance of the comb. 
For heavy supers, solidity—7e., rigidity of build—is of 
primary consequence, for the reason sketched above, and on 
this account no supers of wood do I find in any way comparable 
to the Stewarton. Splendid slabs of honeycomb in these will 
bear an amount of handling which would bring most others to 
erief, or at any rate start running, which would involve loss of 
beauty as well as weight. 
C. 
GERMAN BEEHIVES. 
On page 84 we have remarked upon the peculiar, and to 
our ideas strange, construction of one of the favourite German 
hives. With that people, however, as with ourselves, there 
exists a very extensive variety; and if the adoption in that 
case of a seemingly erroneous principle should lead some of 
us to conclude that German bee-keepers are as much our 
inferiors practically as they are our superiors in a scientific 
point, it may be amusing on the other hand to read the 
contemptuous judgment which Von Berlepsch passes upon the 
practical skill of everybody but Germans. “In all other 
countries,” says he, “bee-keeping is at the present date almost 
from beginning to end a mere plaything and fancy, which, 
instead of bringing in money, causes money, and often a 
ereat deal of it, to be expended.” Thus, if we are tempted 
to a low opinion of the practice of the Germans, we see 
that the feeling is more than reciprocated. 
We here reprint from the Floral World a detailed descrip- 
tion of one of the better-class hives of this nation, as given in a 
portion of a paper upon “Bee Culture,” read before the In- 
ventors’ Institute by Sir Thomas Tancred, Bart. The placing 
of the hive upou the bare ground, as in the figure, is of course 
not an essential, and one would think it must be merely an 
error of the engraver’s. 
In order to obtain the testimony of a disinterested writer 
