A YEAR AMONG THE BEES. 
87 
CHANGING FROM SINGLE TO DOUBLE HIVES. 
Possibly you may be ready to agree with me so far as to 
say, “Certainly, the tiling looks desirable, but is it feas- 
ible ? Will not the trouble counterbalance all advantage ¥ ” 
I know it is usually a matter of some trouble to change a 
colony from one location to another in the same apiary. I 
think, however, that I have reduced the trouble to a mini- 
mum. I will give you my plan and you can judge for 
yourself. 
As I have already told you, my hives stand in pairs, and I 
kept them so, years before I thought of double hives. Sup- 
pose there are 100 colonies in the apiary and we want to put 
them into 50 hives. All are fed up ready for winter, and 
each one has four combs. I am not sure that all colonies 
can be reduced to four combs, as I have never reduced all of 
my colonies to this number, and I have sometimes wished 
my hives were 11-frame instead of 10-frame, so that my 
double hives would hold five frames on each side. 1 might, 
however, have the division-board a little to one side, and 
have five frames on one-half the hive, and four in the other. 
I have spoken heretofore of keeping the brood-frames on the 
south side of the hive. This has been my general custom, 
but I have practiced to some extent having the entrances of 
each pair of hives at opposite ends. For instance : Nos. 1 
and 2 stand close together. The hives facing east, the 
brood-nest of No. 1 is at the north side, and of No. 2 at the 
south side. This is perhaps the better way. The bees of 
No. 1 use mostly the north end of their entrance and the 
bees of No. 2 use the south end. When the bees are fed, 
only these ends of the entrances are left open. 
Now remove Nos. 1 and 2 from their stands, and remove 
one of the stands and put the other in the middle of the 
space occupied by two stands. On this stand place a double 
hive prepared as already described for queen-rearing 
