The Convenient Bee Hire. 
drawers; c, the side of the base; d, the 
spout at the end of the base ; e, the doors at 
the ends of the hive, with a glass eight inches 
square set in each door ; f, the ventilator, 
which is a piece of tin punched full of 
holes, closed in fig. 1, open in fig. 2; g, the 
plug in the end of the base, which, when 
drawn, gives an outlet to the bees that get 
down into the drawer ; h , the legs of the 
base ; i, the drawer in the end of the base ; 
Ifc, the wooden band that surrounds the lower 
edge of the body of the hive, the object of 
which is, to give security when the two are 
united ; /, the drawers above for the recep- 
tion of honey ; m, the inclined board; n, the 
vacancy between the inclined and landing 
boards. Those small marks represent cross 
sticks, extending from one board to the other, 
which are intended for the bees to cross up¬ 
on ; o, the landing board. 
The hive as it stands in the apiary, is three 
feet eight inches high; the main body of 
which is two feet in length, fourteen inches 
in width, and fourteen inches in depth in the 
clear $ above which, the drawers are placed 
as is seen in fig. 2, being three on a side. 
The front end of each drawer is filled with 
glass, so that the apiarian majr at all times 
see what his laborers are doing. The base 
is of the same length and width of the body 
of the hive, and four or five inches in depth, 
and contains the inclined boards, landing 
boards, and drawers. These inclined boards 
are from two and a half to three inches in 
width, and are placed at the upper and inner 
edge of the sides of the base, at an angle of 
about 45°. The landing board is set down 
in the base, (with its upper edge rounded off,) 
so that its under surface will come on a level 
with the lower edge of the inclined boards, 
and at the distance of from half an inch to 
an inch beneath these, is placed the drawers. 
The space as represented by the letter n, 
between these boards, is about half an inch 
in width. The spout projecting at the end 
of the base, is nine inches long and six inch¬ 
es wide, and is so inserted that the bees, in 
passing through it, will pass immediately up¬ 
on the landing board within, which is intend¬ 
ed for them to play upon. 
The advantage this hive possesses over all 
others that I have seen, I conceive to be this: 
First, the facility with which bees maybe hived 
in it, which (by lifting the body from off the 
base,) is as easily done as the hiving in the 
old fashioned box or gum hive—and then, so 
soon as the bees shall have entered their new 
habitation, (which will require but a few 
minutes,) it may be set upon the base, and 
by stopping the spout and putting in the plug, 
may be immediately carried to its place in 
the apiary. The second is, in there being a 
slat partition, running crosswise through the 
centre of the body of the hive, and extending 
from top to bottom. The object of which is, 
to be a guide to the apiarian, in the remov¬ 
ing of honey ; which, after the hive is once 
filled, should be alternately removed to this 
partition annually. The doors being large, 
this can be easily done by driving the bees 
to the opposite side of the partition. 
The third and last, though not least, is in 
the construction of the base, which contains 
the inclined boards, the landing or bottom 
board, and the drawer, (which contains a tin 
ventilator six or eight inches square,) which 
at all times gives the bees such complete 
victory over the worms, when once they 
come or are thrown down into the drawer, 
that the apiarian, if he will attend to his duty 
as well as the bees will attend to theirs, will 
be enabled to destroy at least ninety-nine 
worms out of every hundred that may ever 
infest his hives. And this, I presume, will be 
admitted by all, to be quite a preventive in 
the future breeding of worms. This I con¬ 
ceive to be a decided advantage over all the 
other hives in use, as in their construction, 
the worms (if there ever happens to be any, 
and I presume they may be found more or 
less at times in all hives,) are cast out upon 
the ground, and then permitted to crawl to 
some convenient and suitable place, and there 
wind up in a cocoon, then in the course of a 
few days they will be converted into a chry¬ 
salis, and then a miller, which soon eats its 
way out of the cocoon, and then, in the 
course of a few days after the act of copula¬ 
tion with the male, are in a fit condition to 
enter the hive and deposit some hundreds or 
thousands of eggs more. 
By killing the worms, you will not have 
anything like so many millers to molest your 
hives. All I ask of the community is, (if my 
description has been sufficiently intelligible,) 
to try the hive, and I think they will agree 
with me in calling it a convenient bee-hive. 
M. H. Keever. 
Ridgeville , Warren Co., Ohio, ) 
August 22 d, 1842. ) 
To Correspondents. —The communication 
of Mr. C. Bement, and several others, con 
taining a description of Agricultural Fairs 
which have been held this fall, will appear in 
our next. 
