36 ADVANCED BEE CULTURE. 



is little opportunity for gluing- them fast, and the frames can always 

 be loosened with the iingers. 



Closed-end frames, in common with other styles of self-spaced 

 frames, possess the advantage that they need no fastening when the 

 hives are moved from one part of the country to another, but, aside 

 from this, the advantages are all with the loose, or hanging, free- 

 swinging frame. 



A divisible-brood-chamber hive, one having two sets of shallow 

 frames, thus allowing the hive to be divided horizontally, possesses 

 some advantages. For instance, at the beginning of the season it is 

 desirable to induce the bees to spread out and fill their combs as 

 completely as possible with brood, and by dividing the brood nest 

 horizontally, transposing the sections, placing the lower one above 

 and the upper one below, we bring together, in the center of the 

 hive, the outside, or spherical portions of the brood-nest, while the 

 broad, center-surfaces are thrown to the outside. In their efforts to 

 bring the brood-nest back to a spherical shape, the bees remove the 

 honey from the center of the hive and replace it with brood, thereby 

 increasing the amount of the latter. The transposition of the two 

 sections of the brood-nest also throws a large surface of brood up 

 close to the supers which greatlj' hastens the beginning of work in 

 the sections. 



The use of this style of hive also allows of contraction of the 

 the brood nest without reducing the supering surface, or the bring- 

 ing in of "dummies," as must be done with other styles of hive. 

 Divisible-brood-chamber hives cost considerably more than other 

 styles of hives, and, after using them for years by the side of the 

 ordinary Langstroth hive, seeing them used by other persons in dif- 

 ferent locations, and considering the new features that have recently 

 sprung up in bee-keeping, I have gradually come to the decision that 

 if I were now starting in the bee business, I should not use the hori- 

 zontally-divisible hive. In my opinion, its greatest point of superi- 

 ority is in practicing contraction of the brood-nest; but so far as 

 handling frames is concerned, there is no frame that approaches the 

 plain, all-wood, hanging frame, and, in managing out-apiaries, in 

 which case there is not time for using the bee-escape, this is a most 

 decided advantage. 



In northern climates, bees need more protection in winter than 

 is afforded by a single-wall hive. In Michigan this is best afforded 

 by a cellar; further south, some kind of packing is probably prefer- 

 able. Whether this packing shall be in the shape of the so-called 

 chaff hive, or in something of a temporary nature that can be re- 

 moved in summer, is a point upon which bee-keepers differ. It is 



