122 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
injury will result from having this even Jin., so 
that more should be at first allowed than the 
customary fin. 
Little has been said of the material most fitted for 
bee-hives, for the general suitability of wood has 
been long attested by its practically displacing every 
other substance. Straw is cheap, a good non-con- 
ductor, light and elastic, and easily moulded into 
walls with curved outlines ; but it cannot readily and 
accurately be made to take the rectangular form so 
inseparable from the movable comb system. Rushes, 
sedges, earthenware, plaster, cork-bark, dried mud, 
have all been used, but where apiculture has become 
a science, wooden hives alone are employed. The 
non-conductivity of porous bodies depends much upon 
the amount of air interlocked in their substance, and 
hence light and porous wood is far better for hives 
than that which is dense and solid. Pine is usually 
employed, but willow, poplar, or lime, would be almost 
equally suitable. With a double skin of such woods, 
filled in between with charcoal-powder or cork-dust 
(see page 6o), we have a hive wall which cannot be 
equalled. 
In conclusion, the hive is but an instrument which 
is not automatic. It may be of the correct size and 
shape, and of appropriate material, giving our bees 
most efficient protection, and affording every facility 
for manipulation ; but the observant and attentive bee- 
keeper alone will reap from it, and the bees it contains, 
all the harvest they are capable of supplying. 
