Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/173

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THE HONEY BEE.
169

Greek Islands, and is sometimes called the Candiote Hive. It is in the form of a flower-pot, open at the top, and provided with a flat cover in the same manner as the hive last described. As in this last, also, a certain number of bars are fastened to the uppermost roll of straw, each designed for the foundation of a comb; and when prepared for use, the cover is laid above these bars, fixed at the edges by wooden pins, or sewed with pack-thread, and having the joining carefully plastered with clay. (See Plate X., fig. 4.) This hive affords considerable facilities for forcing the bees to work in wax. It is only necessary to remove one or two of the combs, and the bees will immediately commence filling up the vacancies. In this way, a portion of their honied stores may be abstracted without difficulty, and without having recourse to the barbarous practice of suffocation. It affords also the means of making artificial swarms. It will be observed that in consequence of the diameter of the hive gradually diminishing towards the bottom, rods inserted through the body of the hive are rendered unnecessary, the wedge-like form of the combs serving sufficiently to support them. "The hives," says Wheeler in his Journey into Greece, "are made of willows or osiers, fashioned like our common dust-baskets, wide at top, and narrow at the bottom, and plastered with clay or loam within and without. The tops are covered with broad flat sticks, which are also plastered over with clay; and, to secure them from the weather, they cover them with a tuft of straw as we do. Along