APPENDICES. 333 
as to the essentials of a good hive, I will cite, not a German, 
but a Fr nch author. TI find these essentials well summed 
up by the latest French writer on this subject with which 
T am acquainted, the Abbé Sagot, in his “Culture des 
Abeilles :"— 
“Every hive which does not allow artificial swarms to be 
easily made without stupefying the bees, and the honey to 
be taken without disturbing them or destroying the brood 
and the provisions necessary for it, is defective, and will 
soon discourage a bee-keeper, instead of inducing others to 
imitate him. The best hive, therefore, is one which, whilst 
agreeable to the nature of the bees, at the same time allows 
their possessor to execute with ease all the operations be- 
longing to apiculture—such as a complete inspection of the 
combs at the opening of spring, prompt and plentiful feeding 
when necessary, propagation by artificial swarms on any day 
required at the will of the manager, without having to mount 
guard over the hives for weeks, and to race across country 
in pursuit of natural swarms; easy extraction of the purest 
heney as often as it may be suitable, without deranging the 
bees in their work, and without destroying a single particle 
of the brood, or of the provisions stored up for it; means 
of emptying the combs so as to replace them to he refilled by 
the bees without their being called upon to waste the best 
honey season in providing new ones; lastly, instantaneous 
reunion of bees in October without stupefying or drumming 
them out, and without any fighting. Such are the advan- 
tages, in general little known, very little practised, and often 
impracticable in many sorts of hives, yet most necessary to 
make apiculture an agreeable and useful occupation.” 
These requisites were never really combined in any single 
hive, though some of them might be more or less imperfectly 
attained, till Dzierzon brought out his exceedingly clever 
idea of making each comb movable, so that every comb could 
be taken out and examined separately; and not only so, but 
all the hives in the apiary being exactly of one diameter, no 
matter how different in other respects, any comb in any one 
can be interchanged with any comb in any other. In this 
