148 MODERN BEEHIVES. [Ch. hi. 



where the full slides are not put in, or are required to be 

 withdrawn, as hereafter explained. He will find himself in 

 possession of four boxes so neatly dovetailed on the bevel, 

 that, if he be of a mechanical turn, he will not only be sur- 

 prised 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 

 inches and a half deep inside. Nine bars range along 

 the top of each box. These are not movable, but are 

 designed to induce the regular building of the combs. 

 Between these and beyond the outer ones are ten 

 narrow slides, the slides and bars being grooved to fit 

 nto each other, so that the top is completely covered 

 as if with a crown-board. In the figure the sHdes are 

 shown as partly withdrawn. The fourth box, d, is the 

 depriving box or super; it is only four inches deep, but 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 183, 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 pur- 

 pose of depositing an egg. The honey is thus kept pure, 

 and the thick comb has a more massive, richer appear- 

 ance, and that which not unfrequently mars the quality of 

 a super — viz., cells that either contain brood or have been 



