HIVES FOR BEE-KEEPERS, 
91 
For the latter purpose, however, the Bingham hive 
(Fig. 32) is most suitable. Here, as before, we have 
wide ends to the frames, but not a bottom bar. Slats 
are placed on the floor-board, to give the bees space 
beneath the three-sided frames (?), and form an entrance, 
which may be contracted by Langstroth blocks. The 
frames are closed by end boards {sp), carrying nails, 
around which wires {w, w) are placed. These are 
tightened, so that the hive is held together, by in- 
troducing a piece of wood, used as a spreader. With 
extreme simplicity of structure, great space is secured 
above, to receive surplus boxes, and as the frames are 
only 5|-in. deep, they can be doubled, reversed, or 
inverted in a body, as desired. 
The Heddon hive has recently, in America, arrested 
such general attention that curiosity and interest have 
been excited in Europe. The opinions expressed re- 
garding it have been instructively diverse ; some have 
hailed it with extravagant anticipations of its capa- 
bilities, while others are disposed rather to condemn 
than approve. Since time has not yet permitted of 
putting it fully to the test, it is wise to be content with 
an account of its origin (for, in most of its features, it 
is not a novelty), with a statement of the objects of 
the inventor, and such a description that it shall be 
perfectly intelligible in every detail to those who 
have never seen it. Mr. Heddon at first endeavoured 
to couple the principle of inversion with the Langstroth 
or hanging frame, and to that end adopted a plan 
which I do not think at all equal to that suggested 
in Fig. 22. He practically removed from the old 
frame the bottom rail, and nearly half the lower part 
