HIVES WITH IMMOVABLE COMBS. é 129 
CHAPTER IV. 
THE BEE-HIVES.— HIVES WITH IMMOVABLE COMBS. 
275. The first hives that were provided for bees were as 
rude as their natural abodes. We donot need to look back 
very far to remember the ‘‘ bee-gum,”’ so called, probably, 
because it had often been made out of the gum tree, with 
two sticks crossing in the middle, and a rough board nailed 
on top, while a notch in the lower end formed the entrance. 
In the Old World, they manufactured straw or willow 
‘‘skeps’’ and pottery hives, which are still used in Asia and 
Africa. The earthen hive was simply a tube, laid on its 
side, and closed at each end with a movable wooden disk. 
This disk was removed to take the honey, which is always 
located at the back part of the hives. 
Fig. 45. 
EARTHEN IIIVE OF AFRICA AND CYPRUS. 
(From ‘‘L’Apicoltore,’’ Milan.) 
These earthen hives were, unquestionably, the most 
sensible of those old kinds. In the Islands of Greece they 
were set in thick stone walls, built on purpose with the 
entrance on one side of the wall. Sometimes they were 
located in the walls of the houses, and the honey was 
removed from the inside of the house, or, if in walls, from 
behind, out of the flight of bees. 
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