CHAPTER III.
MODERN BEEHIVES.
§ I. COMMON COTTAGER'S HIVE.
WE will commence our list of hives with this, the very simplest form of adaptation to the depriving system. The upper hive is intended for a super and the lower one is the "stock" for the bees' settled habitation. The directions for applying this, as well as for stocking the hive and taking the honey, will however be obtained under the head "Neighbours' Improved Cottage Hive" ([page 116]), and in the sections referred to there on "Hiving Swarms," "Applying Supers," etc. The hive is well suited for those who are desirous of leading their poorer neighbours into the humane system of bee-keeping. See the remark at the end of the next section respecting the hole for giving admittance to the super.
§ 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.]).