46 FORTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES. 



describing this I must tell you about the hive and bottom- 

 board, 



CLEATS FOR HIVES. 



The hive is the ordinary 8-frame dovetailed, 

 only I insist upon having on each end a plain cleat 

 I3^xij^x^. There are more reasons than one for hav- 

 ing this cleat, rather than the usual hand-holes. It is 

 more convenient to take hold of when one wants to lift 

 a hive. Latterly the manufacturers use a very short 

 cleat, which is a great improvement on the hand-hole, 

 but it does not allow one to carry the hive with the 

 weight resting on the whole forearm, as shown in Fig. 9. 

 This way of carrying a hive is one gotten up by Philo 

 Woodruff, the hired man who has helped me for sev- 

 eral years, evidently to make the work easier for him. 

 One day he was carrying a hive that had no cleats, only 

 hand-holes, perhaps the only one of that kind he had 

 ever carried. He seemed disgusted with it, and as he 

 set the hive down he grumbled, "I wish the man that 

 made them hand-holes had to carry them." 



Another advantage of the cleats is the strength it 

 gives to the rabbeted ends of the hive. Without the cleat 

 the rabbet leaves the hive-end at the top only 7-16 of an 

 inch thick for more than }i of an inch of its depth, and 

 the splitting off of this part is unpleasantly frequent. 

 XA'ith the added cleat the thickness is three times as much, 

 and it never splits off. 



These cleats, not being regularly made by manufac- 

 turers, can only be had by having them made to order, so 

 hives are generally made without thejn, but quite a num- 

 ber of experienced bee-keepers are quietlv using them 

 because of their distinct advantage, notwithstanding the 

 inconvenience of having them made to order. 



BOTTOM-BOARD. 



The bottom-board ,is a plain box, two inches deep, 

 open at one end. It is made of six pieces of % stuff; 



