The sectional hive in which the brood chamber is composed of two or more shallow hive bodies, making it horizontally divisible, offers some advantages, especially to the comb-honey specialist. Most of the ordinary manipulations can be performed readily with such hives without removing the frames. One of their greatest advantages in comb-honey production is the rapidity with which the apiarist can examine the colonies for queen cells if natural swarming is to be controlled by manipulation. They are also very elastic, the units or sections usually being of 5-L frame capacity, permitting a brood chamber capacity of 5 or any multiple of 5-L frames. Among the disadvantages of these hives are the extra cost owing to the greater number of parts necessary in their construction and the difficulty in maintaining proper spacing without the use of top bars on the frames heavier than would seem advisable in the middle of the brood nest. =Sections and Supers.= There is a wide variation in the style of sections and the supers designed to contain them. This, whole to some extent brought about by different local conditions, is largely due merely to the notions of individual beekeepers. Comb-honey apparatus could probably be standardized without sacrificing any really vital features. =BEEWAY _v._ PLAIN SECTIONS.= There are two general styles of sections in common use differing in the method of spacing--the beeway section in which the spacer is a part of the section itself (fig. 5), and the plain in which the spacer is a permanent part of the separator (fig. 4). Each style has its advocates and each offers some advantages. [Illustration: Fig. 3.--Beeway and plain sections, unfolded. (Original.) ] Some of the advantages of the plain (fig. 3) over the beeway sections are: (1) They are simpler in construction, therefore costing less. (2) The edges being plain with no insets, the plain sections are more easily cleaned of propolis when being prepared for market and are especially adapted to cleaning by machinery. (3) By leaving the spacers in the super, sections of the same honey content occupy less space in the shipping case, thus reducing the cost of packages. (4) The plain section is adapted to an arrangement permitting freer communication lengthwise of the row of sections, especially at the corners (p. 15). [Illustration: Fig. 4.--Plain section In super, showing method of spacing. (Original.)] Some of the advantages of the beeway sections (fig. 3) are: (1) The honey is somewhat less liable to injury by handling. (2) Being wider at the corners where folded, they are stronger. (3) Some markets, being accustomed to the larger cases necessary to contain a given number of beeway sections, object to the smaller package containing the same number of plain sections, simply because it is smaller. [Illustration: Fig. 5.--Beeway section In super, showing method of spacing. (Original.)] =DIMENSIONS OF SECTIONS.=