252 



HIVE OF DUCOUEDIC. 



omits to state the individual height of his stories, and 

 therefore we are left to our own conjectures as to its gross 

 elevation. 



Ducouedic may he said to stand at the head of the stori- 

 fiers of France, although he has met with some severe 

 strictures from Messrs. Bosc, Feburier, Lenormand and 

 others. We will first give a description of the hive of Mr. 

 Ducouedic, it having been panegyrized as the most com- 

 plete yet invented on the storifying system, and then 

 enter into an impartial exposition of the system itself. 



The annexed plate is the 

 common straw hive, placed 

 on a platform in which a 

 first swarm is placed, and 

 in this state it remains 

 during the whole of the 

 winter of the same year. 

 This alone has been urged as a decided objection to this 

 hive, on account of the delay that attends it in the reaping 

 of any immediate advantage, which is the chief recommenda- 

 tion of the storifying system. Early in the following year, 

 the first story is added to it, and it is then called La Ruche 



Ecossaise or Scotch hive. The 

 hive then remains in the 

 state of a single story for an 

 entire year, and if the popula- 

 tion of it be considerable, and 

 the season favourable during 

 its first year, it may be ex- 

 pected to produce two or three 

 strong swarms. On the return 

 of the following season, the hive will be twenty-one 

 months old, nine months as a simple hive, and twelve 

 as one story. 



The hive with two stories is represented in the 



