A centre board between each tier of boxes will likewise be convenient; it should be of the same size as the floor, and have an oblong hole about six inches by four in the middle, to give liberty to the bees to pass from box to box. Apiaries should always have a few supernumerary boards of each sort, and also some supernumerary boxes.
As the boxes and boards require to be made with great accuracy, that they may be nicely adapted to each other, a good joiner should be employed to construct them; for if there be any crevices the bees will, according to their invariable custom, fill them with propolis, and thereby waste their valuable time. The square boxes which I have described are the simplest of any, in their form: some persons prefer the octagon or hexagon form; in some situations, if windows be placed in the three posterior sides, those forms may be more convenient for exhibiting the operations of the bees, or the store of honey in the combs; but they are more expensive and more cumbrous, if made as capacious as the square ones; and these latter answer the intended purposes so well, as to satisfy completely those who have used them. Although I have endeavoured to give a clear description of the form and mode of constructing a bee-box and its appendages, probably it may be more satisfactory to young beginners to obtain a sight or a model of them, I refer them therefore to Mr. Hughes, joiner, Ross, Herefordshire, or to Mr. John Milton, 10, Great Marybone Street.
I cannot dismiss this part of my subject, without saying a few words respecting the hive of Huish, which is contrived with the view of allowing the removal of the exterior bars, that support the honey-combs, without disturbing the brood-combs. The principle of this hive appears to be very good, but I doubt whether it will come into general use; for as bees are not very tractable creatures, they are not likely to construct their combs in direct lines, so as to attach one singly to each of Mr. Huish’s bars: the tops of the boxes which I use are constructed like Huish’s, yet I never saw an instance in which the combs did not either cross those bars at right angles, or connect themselves in some way or other with two or three bars, so as to render it impracticable to remove a comb or two from the outsides, in the manner that Huish proposes. The sole advantage of Huish’s hive consists in this undisturbing mode of removal; and could it be effected, honey might be extracted without withdrawing any of the stored pollen or propolis, or molesting the brood in the centre combs; an inconvenience which, it must be admitted, may be charged upon the storifying system, though I hope I have, in my chapter or Deprivation, pointed out a method that will, in a very great degree, if not entirely, remedy this inconvenience. Huish, in his instructions for using his hives, admits the difficulty which I have here stated, as to the attachment of a single comb to more than one bar, and gives particular directions how to proceed on such occasions; but even under tolerably favourable circumstances, the recommended operation would require considerable nicety, and no small portion of courage; in some cases the difficulty would be completely insurmountable. A hive very similar to that of Huish is described in Wheeler’s Travels. He states it to be in use in the neighbourhood of Mount Hymettus. “The hives,” says he, “in which they keep their bees, are made of willow or osiers fashioned like our common dust-baskets, wide at top and narrow at bottom.” “These tops are covered with broad flat sticks, along which the bees fasten their combs, so that a comb may be taken out whole.” We are informed, by Reaumur and Du Hamel, that this Greek method of keeping bees and taking honey was introduced into France in 1754. If it had succeeded, either in France or in this country, I think we should have heard more of it.
The only way in which I conceive that Huish’s idea can be followed up effectually, is, by employing the experimental hive of Huber; but the majority of persons who undertake the management of bees, will look to them as a source of profit; and to these the expense of such a hive would render it completely unavailable. Huber’s first experiments were made in single leaf-hives an inch and a half wide; his latter trials, on several of these connected together, each an inch and a quarter wide, which left the same room for the passage of the bees as the single hive. See [Chapter XI.] Reaumur’s hives consisted of wooden frames, with glass windows, but of such a width, as to allow the bees to construct two combs parallel to each other. This form is unfavourable, inasmuch as it conceals from the observer whatever passes between them.
Mr. Thorley, who practised the plan of super-hiving, surmounted his octagon boxes and flat-topped hives, with a large bell-glass, over which he placed a common straw-hive, to take on and off. From an extract which I have made from Dr. Evans’s book in the chapter on Instincts, he appears to have adopted this method.
It was by the aid of similar glasses that Maraldi was enabled to give to the world so accurate an account of the natural history and labours of bees.
“Long from the eye of man and face of day,
Involv’d in darkness all their customs lay,
Until a Sage, well vers’d in Nature’s lore,
A genius form’d all science to explore,
Hives well contriv’d in crystal frames dispos’d,
And there the busy citizens inclos’d.”
Murphy’s Vaniere.