82 THE HIVE AND THE HONEY-BEE. 



place. In Mr. Nutt's system it will be perceived that fumiga- 

 tion, or bee-dress (hereafter to be described), are rendered unne- 

 cessary, and that even a child may manage his boxes with ease 

 and safety. 



The centre box, on account of its being the breeding place, is 

 never to be meddled with. 



"Weaken not its population, but support its influence, and 

 extend it to those accommodations which no practice, expect my 

 own, has yet put into operation, or made provision for." 



The value of Mr. Nutt's set of bee-boxes is unquestionable, 

 but they are, at the same time, necessarily too costly to be 

 within the reach of those whom Providence has not seen fit to 

 bless with " golden store." Mr. Nutt's views, although possibly, 

 as far as he himself is concerned, original, were entertained by 

 bee-keepers many, many years before him. Among the rest, I 

 may mention Wildmau, who not only used collateral boxes, but 

 even bell glasses, similar to those of Mr. Nutt ; the Rev. S. 

 White, and Madame Vicat. Mr. White evidently mismanaged his 

 boxes, for the complaint against their utility was, that the queen 

 laid her eggs promiscuously in all of them. This would have 

 been obviated had he thought of Mr. Nutt's subsequent idea, 

 viz., of reserving one box as the seat of generation, and sepa- 

 rating it from the side boxes, until necessity called for junction, 

 by tin sliders. Not only, however, must I pronounee Mr. Nutt's 

 boxes an evident improvement upon those I have just mentioned, 

 on the score of utility and completeness, but actually also on the 

 score of simplicity, and the comparative facility with which they 

 are consequently susceptible of being worked. 



Any person of common ingenuity can form for himself a Set of 

 collateral boxes, by attending to the following directions : 



Take as a stand a piece of strong board ; let it be about four 

 feet long, and about two feet wide, as thick as you can procure 

 it ; place it on four legs, and let the edge project over the legs, 

 in order to prevent the incursion of insects ; plane the upper 

 surface smooth. 



Make three boxes, each about ten inches square, with, of 

 course, no bottom, and have the edges of the bottomless portion 

 planed smooth, so as to lie as close as possible to the board. 

 Cut away a portion of the bottom of one side of each box, and 

 in that designed for the centre box, do so on two opposite 

 sides — these are for communication. Get two sheets of tin, or 



