PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 17 



of the things I have found out, nothing has been of more im- 

 portance to me than making this half inch cut at the bottom 

 of the windows. This matter is of such importance that it 

 would pay to have a carpenter or glass man, for in a half 

 day or less they could fix all windows in the attic perfectly 

 that you cannot darken. With this explanation I will try 

 to tell the dwellers of the cities and others about the kind 

 of hive we use, and why we use it, and how to summer and 

 winter the bees, and generally care for them. I feel sure 

 anyone following these directions -cannot very well make a 

 mistake. This is somewhat a lengthy chapter, but it is 

 important and it will pay you to read it more than once. 



The Hive We Use and Why We Use It. 



In a former chapter, I have told you quite plainly the 

 kind of a shelter I use for our bees and I think it is plain to 

 you by this time that we use a hive made of two of tne 

 ordinary Langstroth hives, that we formerly used and that 

 is still used by the great mass of bee keepers, generally. In 

 this article I will tell you all about it, and why we use it. 

 The first great reason is because the small hive we formerly 

 used did not hold an adequate supply of honey to carry the 

 bees through the winter safely and it was just as inadequate 

 to give the queen sufficient room to deposit all the eggs she 

 would in the spring up to the honey harvest. Two very great 

 defects. The one caused tremendous winter losses and the 

 other prevented the queen from giving us the enormous 

 swarm of bees early for the honey harvest that she would 

 have given us if she could have been supplied with a more 

 spacious hive. In talking over winter losses with that vet- 

 eran bee keeper, Geo. E.Hilton, he remarked that he felt sure 

 that nine-tenth of the bees that had died have died of star- 

 vation. The cause for this was the hives were too shallow. 

 They do not in any way provide space enough above the bees 

 to hold enough stores for a winter's supply. When we think 

 the matter over in regard to these shallow hives, we wonder 

 that as many have been gotten through the winter without 

 starvation in these hives as there have. Bees as every one 

 knows, store their honey above them and they should be 

 given a hive of sufficient height to allow them to store a full 

 supply to last them through any winter and spring and this 

 is just what this tall hive made up of two bodies that I use 

 and recommend, does. It is well known now that bees in the 

 Fall drop down to the bottom of any hive they are in and 

 get into a circular mass and eat upward and do not or cannot 

 go in any other direction and if there is not sufficient stores 

 directly placed above them, starvation is inevitable. So I 



