110 REQUISITES OF A GOOD HIVE. 



facilitate to the utmost their entrance when they come home 

 with their heavy burdens. 



If this precaution is neglected, much valuable time and 

 many lives may be sacrificed, as the colony cannot be en- 

 couraged to use to the best advantage the unpromising days 

 which so often occur in the working season. 



I have succeeded in arranging my alighting board in such 

 a manner that the bees are sheltered against wind and wet, 

 and are able to enter the hive with the least possible loss of 

 time. 



55. It should possess all these requsites without being too 

 costly for common bee-keepers, or too complicated to be 

 constructed by any who can handle simple tools : and they 

 should be so combined that the result is a simple hive, which 

 any one can manage who has ordinary intelligence on the 

 subject of bees. 



I suppose that the very natural conclusion from reading 

 this long list of desirables, would be that no single hive can 

 combine them all, without being exceedingly complicated 

 and expensive. On the contrary, the simplicity and cheap- 

 ness with which my hive secures all these results, is one of 

 its most striking peculiarities, the attainment of which has 

 cost me more study than all the other points besides. As 

 far as the bees are concerned, they can work in this hive 

 with even greater facility than in the simple old-fashioned 

 box, as the frames are left rough by the saw, and thus give 

 an admirable support to the bees when building their combs ; 

 and they can enter the spare honey boxes, with even more 

 ease than if they were merely continuations of the main hive. 



There are a few desirables to which my hive makes not 

 the slightest pretensions ! It promises no splendid results to 

 those who purchase it, and yet are too ignorant, or too care- 

 less to be entrusted with the management of bees. In bee- 



