150 HANDY BOOK OF BEES. 



improving tlie management of the frame hive. Both 

 Mr Eaitt's hive and system of management are improve- 

 ments on all former and existing hives and systems of 

 his school — viz., the bar-frame one. Mr Eaitt places 

 his hives on dry peaty banks of soil, covers them well 

 up with bracken leaves, and keeps them warm and dry 

 in winter. This is but a very meagre sketch of what 

 is done at Blairgowrie. The great secret of success 

 there and everywhere else is the introduction and use of 

 large roomy hives, and vigorous intelligent management. 

 The contraction of the space of wooden hives in 

 winter is a piece of good practice, for if the unoccupied 

 combs were left in the hives, and exposed to the mois- 

 ture of the bees, they would lose their virtue and rot 

 during the winter. Straw hives permit the moisture 

 of the bees to escape, and hence their combs remain 

 uninjured, even though unoccupied, and at some dis- 

 tance from the bee-nest. 



The Stewarton Hive. 



This hive, so unlike all other kinds of hives in make, 

 appearance, and management, has some excellences and 

 advantages. It is so diiferent from other hives, that 

 it is hardly possible to give a correct idea of it by a 

 pen-and-ink sketch. To be known it should be seen. 

 A respectable gentleman, who writes under the name of 

 " The Eenfrewshire Bee-Keeper," uses this hive success- 

 fully, and strongly recommends it. It is also used by 

 some bee-keepers in Ayrshire, and in other parts of the 

 country, but it has never come into extensive use. Still 

 the hive, as I have said, deserves honourable mention 

 and a fair trial. The Stewarton hive is octagonal ia 

 shape, and is of several parts put together. It is a 

 strange-looking affair as it falls from the carpenter's 

 bench. A hive complete is made of three breeding- 

 boxes 6 inches deep and 14 inches wide, and three 

 honey -boxes 4 inches deep. In honey seasons when 



