, may if necessary, be placed all around the outside
of the Protector. Such an arrangement will be found very cheap, when
compared with a Bee-House or covered Apiary, and may be made both neat
and highly ornamental. It may be constructed of wood by those who desire
something still cheaper, and any one who can handle a spade, hammer,
plane and saw, can make for himself a structure on which a hundred hives
may stand, at less expense than would be necessary to build a covered
Apiary for ten. As the ventilators of the hive open into this Protector,
the bees are, in Summer, supplied with a cool and refreshing atmosphere,
as closely as possible resembling that which they find in a forest home;
while in Winter, the external entrances of the hives may be safely
closed, and they will receive a supply of air remarkably uniform and
never much below the freezing point. As the hives themselves are double,
no frost can penetrate through them, and thus their interior will almost
always be perfectly dry. When the weather suddenly moderates, and bees
in the common hives fly out, and are lost on the snow, those arranged in
the manner described, will not know that any change has taken place,
but will remain quiet in their winter quarters, unless the weather is so
warm that their owner judges it safe to open the entrances, so that the
warmth may penetrate their hives, and tempt them to fly, and discharge
their faeces. Let it be remembered that the object of this arrangement is
not to _warm up_ the hives by _artificial heat_; but merely to enable
the bees to retain to the utmost their own animal heat, to secure the
advantages set forth in this Chapter on Protection. Once or twice during
the Winter, the blocks which regulate the entrances to my hives should
be removed, and as the frames are kept about half an inch from the
bottom-board, by means of a stick or wire, all the dead bees and filth
may, in a few moments, be removed: or as the entrance of the hives by
removing the blocks, may be so enlarged as to offer no obstruction to
its introduction or removal, an old newspaper can be kept on the
bottom-board, and drawn out from time to time, with all its contents.

A movable board of the same thickness and length with the bottom-boards
of the hive and about six inches wide, separates the hives from each
other, as they stand upon the Protector.

I have made numerous observations upon the temperature of a Protector
made substantially on the plan