SHAPE OF nn r ES. 
73 
SHAPE OP HIVES. 
The shape of a hive is of no great importance. A hive 
nearly square is perhaps hest, as it enables them to keep their 
brood very compact, for hovering over, and to store their 
honey close around it, where it will be most accessible to the 
bees in winter without leaving their cluster far. L. L. Lang- 
sti'oth says the most prosperous colony he ever had was in a 
hive four inches deep — broad and flat. Some want an in- 
clined bottom board, that the hive may be kept cleaner and 
the worms roll out. This would seem like a very simple 
means of giving much assistance to the bens ; but they are 
more bother than profit, as living worms when they fall gen- 
erally have a chord attached to them and can crawl up again 
if they wish, and dead ones (^o but little harm. Besides, if 
the hind part of the stand be elevated an inch or two higher 
than the front, the inclination of the bottom will be such that 
the constant going out and in will keep the bottom board as 
clean of comb cuttings and filth as though it had an inclina- 
tion of forty-five degrees. If I do not use a movable comb 
hive, I want the bottom open that I may invert the hive and 
examine through the bottom. 
DIVIDING-HIVES ARE OBJECTIONABLE. 
For if the plan is adopted of setting one hive on top of an 
other, so as to remove one of them to make a swarm, one of 
the hives will contain most if not all the brood and most 
likely the queen, whilst the other will have uo queen and 
probably uo brood from which to rear one ; and even if a 
qneen was furnished them, the combs would likely be so filled 
with honey that there would be no place for eggs. And even 
if it were empty, the cells would generally be built for store 
combs and could never make a prosperous colony ; the sUme 
is true of hives that divide latterly, to make two of one by 
dividing it in the centre, and putting an empty half to each 
full one. One half will likely contain most of the honey and 
the other the most of the brood. But it would be too tedious 
to enumerate the advantages and disadvantages of the various 
kinds of hives in use. Doubtless very many of them possess 
some advantages ; but in nineteen eases in twenty their com- 
plexity, cost of getting up, or in some other way, the advan- 
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