CONSTRUCTIVE BEEKEEPING 13 



Empty spaces inside the frames make an extra expense to 

 the beekeeper, and an added burden on the bees. They have 

 fully one-fourth more space to keep warm in a hive with beespace 

 and frames, than they have in a box hive of the same dimensions. 



Another way a constructive principle can be applied to the 

 frame is to reduce the top-bar to the same thickness as the 

 bottom-bar. Beekeepers are convinced that ten frames are not 

 enough for a good laying queen, therefore some advocate giving 

 more room above, by adding another hive-body, others giving 

 more room on the side, using a wider hive-body, while some make 

 the hive higher, wider and longer. The larger hive-body, it is 

 claimed, gives better results when used in producing extracted 

 honey, but it can never become a standard hive, because a great 

 number of beekeepers produce comb honey. 



The ten frame or standard hive being the best for most pur- 

 poses, it remains for the beekeeper, when he gives more room, 

 to give the bees a brood-nest with as little space between comb 

 and comb, where the brood-bodies meet, as possible. Considering 

 that all the combs in the hive body given above are built down to 

 the bottom-bar, we have at the junction of the two hive bodies, 

 a space between comb and comb of top-bar, beespace and bottom 

 bar, or about one and one-half inches. From experiments it has 

 been observed that a thick top-bar is a fairly good queen excluder. 

 Hence it is apparent that more or less of an effort is required to 

 pass over this space. When this is reduced by a thin top-bar an 

 easier passage for the queen and bees is made, and better results 

 will follow. In smoothing out little difficulties like these we are' 

 always amply repaid. 



For the same reason all comb should be built down to 

 the bottom-bar, then with cells overlapping top and bottom bars 

 of the respective hive-bodies, the beespace is all that separates 

 comb from comb. The thin top-bar adds more cells to the hive, 

 so adding its mite to the economy of the hive, and giving the 

 bees nearly continuous comb from top to bottom of the hive. 



