HIVES FOR BEE-KEEPERS. 
II7 
unfavourable conditions. Baize-lined doors cover the 
glass ones, while a warm, movable shutter, is added on 
the opposite side, greatly aiding the bees in main- 
taining temperature. In two cases, bees so situated 
have, in my experience, survived the winter; but the 
better course is to add the stock to a weak one in 
the autumn. Should the hive be exposed to the direct 
rays of the sun, the glass will permit the radiant heat 
to enter, but will prevent its escape, and, in con- 
sequence, temperature will rise rapidly, until combs 
melt and the stock is wrecked. Low powers of the 
microscope can be used in examining the eggs and 
growing larvae. For this purpose, artificial light 
should be thrown, as directly as possible, into the cells, 
by a bull’s-eye condenser. Mr. Abbott introduced 
perhaps the most convenient, and, in my opinion, the 
most generally useful, form of observatory. Instead 
of occupying a table, and engrossing a considerable 
space, it is held at the top and bottom corners by 
pivots which are attached to the wall, so that it moves 
after the manner of a door. The lower pivot is large 
and hollow, the exit and entrance passing through it. 
It may be placed by the side of the window, and 
rotated into the light for examination, or pressed 
back to the wall out of the way. Much ingenuity 
has been expended in devising unicomb hives which 
could be folded up into a compact form, so that the 
heat of the bees might be retained easily, but no 
“observatory” presents so few disadvantages as the 
more simple arrangements described. 
Having now introduced and discussed with some 
fulness almost every principle of hive-construction 
