MATERIALS OF HIVES. 
531 
The common Dzicrzon hive* is long and flat, bui, as 
the combs run fom side to side, instead of from front to 
rear, the bees, unless the hive is uncommonly well pro¬ 
tected, will suffer from cold in Winter. As the German 
Apiarian uses slats instead of frames, it would be incon¬ 
venient for him to remove any very long combs from his 
hive. 
The variety of opinions respecting the best materials 
for hives, has been almost as great as on the subject of 
their proper size and shape. Columella and Virgil recom¬ 
mend the hollowed trunk of the corlc tree , than which 
no material would be more admirable if it could only be 
cheaply procured. Straw hives have been used for ages, 
and are warm in Winter and cool in Summer. The diffi¬ 
culty of making them take and retain the proper shape 
for improved bee-keeping, is an insuperable objection to 
their use. Hives made of wood are, at the present time, 
fast superseding all others. The lighter and more spongy 
the wood, the poorer will be its power of conducting 
heat, and the warmer the hive in Winter and the cooler 
in Summer.f Cedar, bass-wood, poplar, tulip-tree, and 
soft pine, afford excellent materials for bee-hives. The 
Apiarian must be governed, in his choice of lumber, by 
the cheapness with which any suitable kind can be ob¬ 
tained in his own immediate vicinity. 
I have since preferred to make my hives eighteen and one-eighth inches from front 
to rear, fourteen and one-eighth inches from side to side, and ten inches deep. Mr. 
Quinby prefers to make my movable frames longer and deeper. 
♦.Dzierzon builds hives in structures for two, four, and even many more colonies. 
On Plate XXII., Fig. 71 (the Frontispiece to the first edition of my work), I have 
given a representation of a triple hive. The little that can be saved in the first 
cost of such hives, seems to me to bo more than lost by the great Inconvenience of 
handling them. 
t Mr. Wagner informs mo that Scholz, a German Apiarian, recommends hives 
made of adobe —in which frames or slats may be used—as cheaply constructed, and 
admirable for Summer and Winter. Such structures, however, cannot be moved. 
But in many parts of our country, where both lumber and saw-mills are scarce, 
and where people are accustomed to build adobe houses, they might prove desir¬ 
able. The material is plastic clay, mixed with cut straw, waste tow. dwu 
