DESCRIPTION OP WHITWORTh's HIVE. 281 



These four windows correspond with the four corners of 

 the platform, leaving between them an open space, to which 

 some brass handles are attached on the outside, wherewith 

 to lift the hive when required. In the middle of the cover of 

 the hexagonal hive, there is a square hole, which opens and 

 shuts by means of a wooden slide, of about four inches 

 broad, which moves between two grooves made in the thick- 

 ness itself of the lid of the hexagonal hive. This square hole 

 serves as a passage to the bees, when they pass from the 

 wooden hive into the straw one which is placed above. This 

 takes place when a swarm is about to depart. 



Above the hexagonal hive is a hive of straw of a circular 

 form, and rather natter on the top than the common hives 

 are generally made. The straw hive has a square opening 

 in the upper part, which is opened and shut by a slide, like 

 that which forms the communication between this hive and 

 that which is beneath. It is by this square hole that the 

 bees pass from the straw hive into a third, which is of glass. 



Over the straw hive is placed a glass hive, the form of 

 which is rather spherical. It has a small opening in the top, 

 in which is placed a handle or a large brass ring, whereby 

 to lift it when the honey is to be taken away from it. 



This glass hive is ten inches and a half high, and eight 

 inches and a half in diameter towards the base. In the 

 middle of it is placed, in a perpendicular position, a small 

 round piece of wood like a little cylinder, about an inch in 

 diameter, in and directly under the brass handle. This piece 

 of wood is crossed by another in the middle of the same 

 form, which ought to be perfectly horizontal, and touch as 

 it were the sides of the hive *. 



* We have in a previous part of this work entered our protest against the 

 use of these sticks, hut in no kind of hive ought they to be more thoroughly 

 rejected than in the glass hive. They cannot be regarded in any other cha- 

 racter than as a direct nuisance in it, disfiguring the beauty of the combs, 

 as they cannot be extracted without being cut, and thereby wasting a consi- 

 derable quantity of the honey. 



N 5 



