Friend Novice’s allusion to air castles in his communication in the Bee Journal for August, _struck our flint_. We read his communication to our better half. “Don’t believe a word of it! Do you think that’s so?” Exclaimed she. “I do. I have been following that Novice in print some time, and always found him truthful.” Here’s what’s the matter. A spruce old aunt was at our house a few days since, and something was said about new dresses and the fall styles, when our better half broke loose with--“Don’t expect to have anything new this year. Everything we’ve made this year has been spent for bee-gums and paints; and now the upstairs is stored so full, there’s no place for old carpets and lumber. There’s never been any money in that here, yet, and I don’t believe there ever will be,” &c., &c. H. _Murfreesboro, Tenn._, Aug. 8, 1870. * * * * * [For the American Bee Journal.] That Shallow Form of Hive. MR. EDITOR:--I see in the July number of the Bee Journal, page 9, that Mr. C. Rogers is out on “the shallow Langstroth Hive.” Mr. R. and _my old friend_ Gallup are the only persons that I now recollect of, who complain of the shallow form of hive, when wintered in a house or cellar. Mr. Rogers says it is not a “good” hive “for the six or eight weeks between the winter and warm weather,” and leaves it thus, without telling us why it is not. For my part, I cannot see what the shape of the hive has to do with the loss of bees in early spring. All bee-keepers say that the bleak winds at that season destroy a great many bees, regardless of the kind of hive they may have been in. All the proof Mr. Rogers gives that this form of hive is bad in early spring is, that “he has sometimes _thought_ that his hives contained _less_ bees after being out a month or two, than when first put out.” Well, suppose it is so, is that the fault of the hive? Every experienced bee-keeper knows that when bees in any form of hive are taken from their winter quarters, there is a sudden decrease in numbers, from the simple fact that many of them are old and ready to die at any hour from sheer old age; but having been shut up all winter they live longer than they would in the working season. Then, when taken from their winter quarters and allowed to issue in the open air, many of them never return. But is this the fault of the hive? My experience is that any form of hive, when wintered in a cellar, will lose bees very rapidly when first set out; much more so than a colony that has been wintered on its summer stand. I can account for this in no other way, than that many of the bees have lived to a good old age, and are ready to die soon; and a sudden change in the weather being hard on them any how, weakens them in numbers very fast.