The apiary; or, bees, bee-hives, and bee culture [1878] / being a familiar account of the habits of bees, and the most improved methods of management

by Alfred Neighbor

§ II. NEIGHBOURS' CRYSTAL PALACE SKEP.

This hive (so styled from its obtaining a prize at the Crystal Palace Show in 1875) differs from the foregoing in being larger, and in having a thicker floor-board, a hooped fitting at the base, a window in the super, and a movable cap as a finish to either super or stock hive, according as the former is in use or not. The outside dimensions of the lower hive are seventeen inches diameter by nine in depth, and of the super thirteen inches by five.

When there is a hole in the centre on top of the stock hive, as is the case here, there is a possibility of the queen ascending and depositing eggs in the super. To check such a mishap, a queen and drone preventer can be applied, which is a contrivance so arranged as to admit the passage of nothing larger than a worker ([Chap. IV. § xvii.]).