MOVABLE COMB HIVB. 15 



step in advance, was, while I secured my surplus honey in 

 the most convenient, beautiful and salable forms, so to facili- 

 tate the entrance of the bees into the honey receptacles, as 

 to obtain the largest fruits from their labors. 



Although I felt confident that my hive possessed some 

 valuable peculiarities, I still found myself unable to remedy 

 many of the perplexing casualties to which bee-keeping is 

 liable. T was now convinced that no hive could be made to 

 answer my expectations unless it gave me the complete con- 

 trol of the comis, so that I might remove any, or all of them 

 at pleasure. The use of the Huber hive had convinced me 

 that with proper precautions, the combs might be removed 

 without enraging the bees, and that these insects were capa- 

 ble of being domesticated or tamed, to a most surprising 

 degree. A knowledge of these facts was absolutely neces- 

 sary to the further progress of my invention, for without it, 

 I should have regarded a hive designed to allow of the 

 removal of the combs, as quite too dangerous in use, to be 

 of any practical value. At first, I used movable slats or bars 

 placed on rabbets in the front and back of the hive. The 

 bees were induced to build their combs upon these bars,- and 

 in carrying them down, to fasten them to the sides of the 

 hive. By severing the attachments to the sides, I was able, 

 at any time, to remove the combs suspended from the bars. 

 There was nothing new in the use of movable bars ; the 

 invention being probably, at least, a hundred years old ; and 

 I had myself used such hives on Golding's plan, as recom- 

 mended by Bevan, very early in the commencement of my 

 experiments. The chief peculiarity in my hives, as now 

 constructed, was the facility with which these bars could be 

 removed without enraging the bees, and their combination 

 with my new mode of obtaining the surplus honey. 



With hives of this construction I commenced experimenting 



