REQUISITES OF A COMPLETE HIVE. 
99 
the bees ought not, as in most hives, to lose valuable time 
in searching for it. 
27. It should give the requisite ventilation, without en¬ 
larging the entrance so much as to expose the bees to 
moths and robbers. 
28. It should furnish facilities for admitting at once a 
large body of air, that the bees may be tempted to ily 
out and discharge their feces, on warm days in Winter, 
or early Spring. 
If such a free admission of air-cannot be given, the bees, 
by losing a favorable opportunity of emptying themselves, 
may suffer from diseases resulting from too long confine¬ 
ment. 
29. It should enable the Apiarian to remove the excess 
of bee-bread from old stocks. (See p. 82.) 
30. It should enable the Apiarian to remove the combs, 
brood, and stores, from a common to an improved hive, so 
that the bees may be easily able to attach them again 
in their natural positions. A colony transferred to my 
hive will repair their combs, in a few days, so as to work 
as well as before their removal. 
31. It should permit the safe and easy dislodgement of 
the bees from the hive. 
This requisite is especially important, when it becomes 
necessary to break up weak stocks, to join them to 
others. 
32. It should allow the bees, together with the heat and 
odor of the main hive, to pass in the freest manner, to the 
surplus honey-receptacles. 
In this respect, all other hives with which I am ac¬ 
quainted are more or less deficient: the bees being forced 
to work in receptacles difficult of access, and in which, in 
cool nights, they find it impossible to maintain the requi- 
site heat for comb-building. Bees cannot, in such hives, 
