78 
BEE-CULTUBE. 
can be lifted out and put in again at pleasure. To insure 
the building of one comb to each strip, tack a triangular strip 
each side seven-eighths of an inch to the under side of these 
lath, and the bees will start their combs on the sharp edge of 
these strips. Or, what is still surer, use empty combs cut in 
strips one inch wide; melt the edges of these combs in a mix- 
ture of warm bees-wax and rosin and stick them to the under 
edge of the lath; their combs will then be already started. 
Persons who never tried to guide bees in this way to build 
their ccmbs straight, are apt to say : “Bees will build their 
combs just as they please ; so they will, and just as the keep- 
er pleases, too, if he understands guiding them : as a horse 
turned loose in a stable with hay in the rack, it is always 
quite certain at which end of the stall his head will be. The 
man who was in the habit of placing candy jars and glass 
tumblers on top of his hive to be filled with honey, instructed 
his bees to that effect by writing on the outside of the glass, 
was always understood best when a small piece of comb as a 
sample was stuck where he wanted them to commence (bees 
dislike to commence on glass as it is too cold and smooth). 
But to return to the hive. It is now all that bees want for 
their accommodation ; but the keeper wants the surplus honey 
and the swarms — how will he best get them ? The brood is 
reared in the middle or lower part of the main chamber of the 
hive ; the bee-bread is placed around the brood ; the honey 
is placed outside of that in the sides, but mainly on the top of 
the hive, away from the entrance and the light. As soon as the 
lower chamber is filled, the bees will pass up and store the honey 
where it is not likely the queen will go to lay her eggs, and 
consequently no bee-bread be deposited. The boxes in 
which the surplus honey is deposited are called honey boxes. 
Make three honey boxes twelve and three-eighths inches 
long, six inches wide and five and five-eighths high, outside 
measure, make a crack in the bottom of the box full length, 
one-fourth or three-eighths of an inch wide, put a five by six 
inch glass in each, and set these three boxes across the top of 
the hive and they will just cover it, resting on the edge one- 
fourth of an inch all around; then make a cap to cover the 
boxes eighteen and three-fourths by thirteen by six inches 
inside measure; rabbet the inside of the under edge all 
around three-eighths by three-eighths of an inch to make a 
shoulder to keep out water and inseots. The boards are all 
