The size of the room will of course be sufficiently large to contain what bees we wish to place therein. Sixteen feet by twenty, inside measure, will hold one hundred and fifty swarms, and leave ample alley room. The place should be dry, there should be a double door, the room _perfectly dark_, ceiling joists and a floor should be laid over head, and eight or ten inches of sawdust, tan-bark, dry marsh muck, or some nonconductor placed on it before putting on the roof. Four pipes, chimneys or tubes, made of ten or twelve inch boards, should run from just below the ceiling through the roof, and be of sufficient length to exclude the light, say eight feet, on the lower end of which there will be a simple slide or valve. Place one in or near each corner of the room. Thus we have the means distributed for the ascent of the surplus heat, and the animal heat of one hundred swarms is quite considerable, and the great difficulty, if any, will be to keep our room cool enough. To jump at the conclusion that a room with thin walls will accomplish it, will not answer; the great difficulty is to have an even temperature. As, if our walls are thin, the rays of the sun and warm air will make the room too warm. In February, 1869, I was under the necessity of doubling the thickness of a ten inch wall on the south side. We also place a pipe or tube quite around the inside of the room upon the floor or ground (a floor is quite unnecessary, worse than nothing, for it makes a hiding place for rats and mice), this tube may be made of foot boards, and inch holes bored in it, once in two feet, for the equal distribution of the cold and fresh air, when needed. One end of this pipe must pass through the wall, and must have a slide or valve at or near the outer end. If my room was at the bank or hill, the lower side or end will of necessity be destitute of earth banking, and we would make the wall at least sixteen inches, filled as above with some nonconducting substance, and dry marsh muck is equal, if not superior, to almost any other substance, except fine charcoal, and is easily procured. A house built altogether upon a level surface, with the walls of _sufficient thickness_, say eighteen or twenty inches, will be equally good. The cost of such a house as I have described cannot be great. Most, if not all the labor, can be performed by the apiarian. This house will be found very convenient for many other purposes in the spring and summer, in the various operations, to wit: in overhauling and examining the bees in the spring, as a window sash may then be placed in the top of one of the doors, and a stove placed within--thus I have one arranged.