BEVAN’S CROSS-BAR HIVE. 85 
BEVAN’S CROSS-BAR HIVE. * 
The above is a representation of Dr. Bevan’s cross-bar hive. The 
object of the bars arranged across the top (as seen in the cut) are to 
guide the bees in constructing their combs, that they may be more 
uniform, and afford a greater amount of brood-combs, than when left 
to their own natural habits. The centre bars are placed at suitable 
distance for brood-combs, are one half inch thick, and one and an 
eighth inch wide. The sides of the boxes are rabbeted at the top 
half their thickness, and half an inch deep to receive the bars. The 
boxes or hives are eleven and five-eighths inches square, and nine 
inches deep in the clear, affording space for seven bars. Dr. Bevan 
says, “that if the distance of the bars from each other be nicely ad- 
justed, there will be interspaces between them of about half an inch. 
The precise width of the bars should be particularly attended to, and 
also their distances from each other, as any deviation in this respect 
would throw the combs wrong, particularly if that deviation gave an 
access of room. It would be better, therefore, for them to be some- 
what within the rule than to exceed it by ever so little, for whenever 
the bees evince a disposition to depart from the prescribed dimensions, 
its tendency is generaily to make the combs approximate. This has 
induced me to have my boxes surmounted by bars varying a little in 
their relative distance; thus, the three centre bars are placed at the 
distance of only seven-sixteenths of an inch from each other, while 
the rest gradually recede from that distance, so that the two last in- 
terspaces on either side of the box are nine-sixteenths of an inch in 
width. The same precision must be observed in the length of the 
bars, as it is of great importance to have them indiscriminately 
applicable to every box, and in case the joiner should exceed the spe- 
