OBSERVING HIVES. 
334 
may be recruited, in a few minutes, by giving it maturing 
brood from another hive.* 
These observing-hives may be constructed to accommo 
date a full swarm. I do not, however, recommend such 
a hive for ordinary purposes, but one holding only a sin¬ 
gle frame (PI. IV., Figs. 14, 15), which, while it gratifies 
curiosity, admits of easy control, and requires only a few 
bees to be diverted from more profitable hives. 
A parlor observing-hive of this form may be conveni¬ 
ently placed in any room in the house—the alighting- 
board being outside, and the whole arrangement such 
that the bees may be inspected at all hours, day, or night, 
without the slightest risk of their stinging. Two such 
hives may be placed before one window, and put up or 
taken down in a few minutes, without cutting or defacing 
the wood-work of the house. In one, the queen may 
always be shown, and in the other, the process of rearing 
young queens from worker-eggs. These miniature hives 
may oe stocked in the samo way that a nucleus is formed, 
or a small after-swarm may be hived in them. 
An observing-hive will prove an unfailing source of 
pleasure and instruction ; and those who live in crowded 
cities, may enjoy it to the full, even if condemned to the 
penance of what the poet has so feelingly described as an 
“ endless meal of brick.” The nimble wings of these agile 
gatherers will quickly waft them above and beyond “the 
smoky chimney-potsand they will bear back to their 
city homes the balmy spoils of many a rustic flower, 
“blushing unseen,” in simple loveliness. Might not their 
* A writer, In a description of tho different hives exhibited at the World’s Fair, 
n London, laments that no method has yet been devised, to enable bees to cluster, 
in cold weather, In an obsorvlng-hlve, so as to preserve them alive in Winter, even 
in the moderate climate of Great Britain. By tho use of movable frames, this 
lifliculty can bo easily obviated, as, on the approach of cold weather, tho frames, 
with tho bees, may be put into a suitable hive, and returned in the Spring to their 
Ad abode. 
