101 
THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
queen ; bat as all this time the bet s are getting 
fewer, it i* better to purchase a pure impreg- 
nated queen. 
The parent stock hive, in which the old 
queen remained, will soon be aa strong again, 
and in about six weeks another swarm can be 
made, if it is not too late in tbe season ; or if 
you deaire to obtain more honey, let them fill 
the honey-chamber with comb and beautiful 
honey, which will be a real delicacy on your 
table, and your friends would not be angry if 
you make them a present with a comb of sweet 
nectar bottled by your industrious little bees. 
11th September, 1886. 
Beekeeping for Beginners. 
[Notick — In our lost number, No. 8, August’ 
the article “Beekeeping” was divided in 
error, and the portion relating to Swarming 
appears on page 93, instead of at the end of 
the article “Beekeeping for Beginners” on 
page 87.] 
Hives. 
It has been assumed that our beginner 
has bad his bees in a box-hive, that i», a 
parking-case, a gin-case, a candle-box, or 
something of tbe kind, therefore he can know 
very little of the internal condition of the 
hive, except what he can gather from the 
behaviour of the bee* outside, or from the 
verv imperfect inspection afforded by looking 
under the box utid up among the combs. 
Now, to obtain success and the best returns, 
it is absolutely necessary to keep bees in 
frame-hives. These are the chief reasons : 
You can manage and control tbe bees better; 
you can always ascertain their condition, and 
help them in disease or trouble, and feed them 
easily when short of stores; you can divide 
stocks, swarm them artificially, strengthen 
weak ones, remove and exchange queens, 
rear queens, take honey without killing a bee, 
extract honey from the combs, and return the 
comb uninjured to the hive, and so on ; many 
of which operations arc next to impossible, 
and the other*, to say the least, very difficult 
with boxes. Our advice is, then, get frame- 
hives as soon as possible ; transfer your bee* 
and combs from the boxes to the frames, and 
discard box-hives altogether. 
Frame-hive* an 1 made of many forms and 
dimensions. English beekeeper* have several 
patterns, but wisely agree all to have the same 
sized frame, which is called the Itritu/i standard 
frame; its dimensions are 11} inches x 8 inches. 
American beekeeper* have many hives and 
many sized frames, and so with German, 
1' tench, Italian, and Swiss beekeeper*, a gene- 
ral want of uniformity exists. In Australia, 
however, a very nearly unanimous opinion has 
been expressed in favour of adopting, as the 
standard frame, the one known as the sim- 
plicity Latu/ttrolh, whose dimensions arc 
17J inches wide, by 9} inches deep, and this 
may be now regarded as the Australian 
standard. So many ndvantsg s may be 
derived from using exactly the same sized 
frames as other beekeepers, that we advise our 
beginner not to be beguiled into purchasing 
any hive except it is made for and contains the 
true-sized frame. 
We do not mean to say that bees have a 
preference for one sized frame or one kind of 
hive over another; but there is this to be said, 
that among English and American beekeepers 
the tendency is to finally adopt frames that 
are sopiewhat wider than deep, arid it is 
almost universally agreed am> ng them that a 
hive opening nt the top and out of which the 
frames can be lifted i* the best for numerous 
reasons. Under these circumstances, and bear- 
ing in mind the fact that where frame hives 
are adopted, the Langstroth is used by most 
beekeepers in Australia and New Zealand, we 
recommend tbe Langstroth frame ai d hive. 
The dimensions of the simplicity Langitroth 
hive are as follow : — Main hive or brood box, 
inside measure, 1' i inches f-om front to back. 
11} inches from side to side, and ! 0 inches high ; 
this bring made of boards ; of an inch thick, 
will measure outside 16 inches from side to 
side, and 20{ inches from front to back. Now 
the frame* will fit into these and hang on tbe 
fyont and back so as to hang parallel with the 
sides and will leave “ bee space,” that is, about 
$ of an inch between the ends of the frames 
and the inside of the box, and between the 
bottom of the frame and the bottom board 
when the frames are let down to a shoulder 
which is made inside the back and front boards 
for their reception. It is not an easy matter 
to give a deset iption of how to construct these 
hives without diagrams which shall be intel- 
ligible to those who have only a slight know- 
ledge of carpentery ; but nevertheless we intend 
giving such a description further on. 
The main hive or brood-box, as we will call 
it, will hold ten frame* at their proper distance 
apart, viz, 1} inches from centre to centre, 
this being found the best distance to allow of 
the bees building their combs of the thickness 
required for brood rearing, at the same time 
leaving sufficient room for the bees to move 
about and cluster between the combs. As 
this portion of the hive is generally given up 
to brood, and hence is called the brood-box or 
chamber, arrangements arc made by which 
another box, which may be exactly the same 
as the brood-box, can be placed above it, when 
it is called a tu/ter ; in this the bees will store 
their honey so soon as the lower box is full 
of bees, brood and honey, and such honey is 
