APIARY 
67 
ground to the hive is very important on 
cool days when the bees can not fly readily. 
They will alight on the ground, and, if they 
can, crawl into the hive. During a heavy 
honey flow bees will come in heavily laden, 
Heddon hive-stand. 
and land just in front of the hive. In 
either case it is important to have hive- 
stands so constructed that the bees can 
crawl into the hive, as shown in the next 
illustration. 
A modified form with slanting front, 
while slightly more expensive, is much 
better. A wood-shop or planing-mill can 
cut a board thru the middle on a bias as 
easily as it can square in two. There will 
then be two boards, right and left, for the 
sides. The illustration shows how it is 
made. 
The tendency now among the largest 
producers is to use a double hive-stand— 
that is, a stand after the pattern of the 
Heddon, but long enough and wide enough 
also to take on two hives crosswise, and 
yet leave a space of six or eight inches 
between. The illustration shows a design 
that is very cheap and effective. The front 
and rear boards are made of one-inch lum¬ 
ber, preferably unplaned, from three to 
four inches wide. These two pieces are 
tied together by a couple of 2 x 4 ? s or 
scantling, crosswise as shown. It is ad¬ 
visable to have these last-named pieces 
back five or six inches from the ends of 
the side boards. When constructed in this 
way, the hive can be placed more nearly 
over the point of greatest strength, and 
at the same time allow room for the toes 
of the operator to project under the hive 
while working over it. 
This form of hive-stand has much to 
recommend it. It is almost as cheap as 
the single hive-stand, and yet will accom¬ 
modate two hives. Colonies worked in 
pairs on it do very nicely. In the fall, if 
one of them should be a little weak it is 
possible to unite them by putting the 
stronger colony in the center of the hive- 
stand to catch all the flying bees and then 
remove the other hive. It is also possible 
to put a one or two frame nucleus on one 
end of the hive-stand, leaving the colony 
on the other end. This nucleus can be 
used during the season for rearing queens, 
and at the close it can be easily united 
with the full colony on the other end, 
which should be moved to the center of 
the hive-stand. See Uniting. 
This double hive-stand lends itself to 
the plan of wintering when two colonies 
are put in a winter case; or it will work 
very nicely when four colonies are put in 
a single case, provided there are two dou¬ 
ble hive-stands placed back to back. See 
Wintering Outdoors ,• subhead quadruple 
cases. 
