FROM OLD TO NEW 
2 7 
build their combs. Each frame, containing its comb, 
filled with brood and honey and covered with bees, 
is hung beside another, spaced just one and a half 
inches from the center of one frame (which inevi¬ 
tably means the center of the comb also) to the center 
of the next. When the combs are fully built, this 
leaves a quarter of an inch between the combs, 
known as a “bee-space;” the distance bees leave 
when building combs without outside interference. 
If the man-made frames were spaced wider apart, 
bridges of wax would be built across, which would 
have to be broken out each time the frames were 
removed—a slow, irksome process. 
If the space were narrower, there would not be 
room for the bees to pass each other and they would 
build cells so shallow that the bees developing in 
them would be undersized. 
On removing these carefully spaced frames from 
the hive and examining the combs, the amount of 
honey and brood, the health and general condition 
of the colony can all be discerned at a trained glance. 
What enlightenment on the industrious life of 
Apis Mellifica, the honey bee, came with the inven¬ 
tion of movable frame hives! There is now less 
guesswork and groping in the dark, and no need 
whatever for slaughter of the innocents before re- 
