383 
APPENDIX. 
But when these flowers begin to yield honey, the frames may bo put into a larger 
hive with two or three empty frames, and tile boxes taken off This inferior honey 
will servo for winter stores as well as the other, and is worth one-third less in mar- 
ket. In the spring, if thought best, the number of frames may bo reduced again to 
six or seven, and will give an opportunity to take away most of the drone-comb, 
and leave cells in abundance for raising workers. If worker-combs are taken 
away, they should be saved for now swarms — the drone-coils, when white, for 
surplus boxes. Where there is no buckwheat raised, the swarms might as well bo 
hived in a full-sized hive at first, as it would make no dift’eronco when they secured 
their winter stores. 
The top easiest made, of which I have a few, Is X -inch board, 21 inches k>Dg 
by 14 wide, clamped at the ends, and a rabbeting cut around the edge, like the 
top described lor tko common hive ; the passages to the surplus boxes aro inch 
holes. Theso boards, notwithstanding the clamps, will warp a little, being kopt 
moist by the bees on the under side. These will barely answor. Another, that 
will keep its shape better, is made of several pieces. Two of them are 21 % inches 
long by 1}£ wide ; the others, 11 inches long, and two G inches wide, and two 4>£ 
Inches wide. The nails aro driven through the narrow strips edgewise into tho 
ends of the others. It presents this appearance. Tho 
open spaces are for tho passages for tlio bees into the 
boxes, which set over them, and are covered with a box 
that ills on this rabbeting, similar to those for the other 
hive. Tho boxes are already described on pages 51 
and 52. 
Both kinds of tho tops — I might say honey-boards — 
described, are simply laid on the top of the hive. Others 
make them with heavy clamps on the under side, where they project over tho ends 
of the hive, but I have found such inconveniont on some occasions. This point is uot 
vory important. 
I have now described the hive as I uso it, yet I am not sure but I should make an 
alteration if I wore to start again. It would be only to take an inch off tho height 
of tho frames, making them uiuo instead of ten Inches deep, and have ouo or two 
more in number. The difference is so trifling, however, that I have no idea of 
changing now. The combs would not be quite as heavy when filled throughout, 
and less liable to break in moving. I have had an accident in that line on a warm 
day. 1’art of the combs in two stocks settled down on tho bottom of the frames, 
and then leaned against the next one, leaving a space of somo inches at tho top, 
which the bees had commenced filling, before discovered, with new combs. Ilenco 
it was necessary for somo surgical operations, not in setting broken bones, but 
broken combs. I provided myself with splints twelve and a half inches long, half 
an inch wide, and one-fourth in thickness. With tho help of an assistant I got tho 
combs back into the frames straight, and put two or three upright spliuts between 
it and the next frame, which kept it steady till tho bees secured it by waxing it fast 
again at the top. 
As an additional support to these combs, and to givo a chance for the bees to 
change position between different combs in winter, I have raado a division in the 
frames the present summer (1858). I tried two methods like these. 
The horizontal one is simply a triangular strip like tho one at tho top. Tho bees 
leate spaces on the top side for a passage, and begin another comb again on tho 
angle, under side. The other division is a square of three-fourths of an inch, sawed 
in two diagonally, and set up in the middle with tho fiat surfaces ono-fourtn of an 
inch apart. Of their utility, on tho whole, I am yet in doubt. Several of my own 
and neighbors’ swarms, put into those frames with tho horizontal division, have not 
followed the angular edge uniformly. Those divided tho other way on somo 
occasions go straight, on some others on one side, and crooked noarly at right 
angles on the other. Tho divisions may uot bo the cause of tho variations, yet 
there is room for suspicion in that direction, because last year (1857), with frames 
without any, I had much better work. In theso whole combs I made passages for 
the bees through them by cutting a half inch hole through oach with a small knife, 
in November. There is not a tenth part of tho difficulty attending it that one 
unaccustomed to it would suppose. But still it requires somo courage ; and I would 
