12 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



is to be preferred at all times. If a smaller entrance is desired reduce 

 it with a notched stick such as is shown in the hives illustrated. 



Hives of different sizes and proportions are used and advocated 

 by different persons. They are designed to meet some supposed 

 need of the bee-keeper, or are based on some theory of bee habits, 

 but with one or two exceptions it is believed they all call for a lot of 

 attention and manipulation at critical times. The average person 

 will do well to avoid them. There is one type of hive, however 

 which is designed to minimize labor and give average results. It 

 has been the subject of so much discussion and so many inquiries 

 have been made concerning it that it seems worth while describing 

 it here. It is known as the '.'Let Alone" hive. The type was 

 originally exploited l^y Gen. D. L. Adair, in the late '60's, and was 

 then called the "Long Idea" hive. Some few years ago Mr. Allen 

 Latham, of Norwich, Conn., experimented mth it and finally de- 

 veloped the present type which he has called the "Let Alone." It 

 is approximately thirty-six inches long, twenty inches wide, and 

 eighteen inches high. In the Adair hi-\'e the entrance was in the 

 middle of the long side, in the Latham hive it extends across one end. 

 Mr. Latham had the advantage of an invention which Adair had 

 not, namely, the so-called queen-excluding metal. Also Mr. Latham 

 is a very careful student of bee habits, and with the knowledge 

 acquired in many years' work with the bees, was able to accomplish 

 what had not before been done. 



In the Adair hive the queen had the run of all the combs (about 

 twenty) ; in the Latham hive she is confined to the seven at the front, 

 being kept from the others by a sheet of the queen -excluding metal. 

 (Fig. 4.) 



Fio. 4. — Excluder Metal. 



