It consists (see Fig. 57) ordinarily of four octagonal boxes. Three of these, _A_, _B_, and _C_, are called "body-boxes," and serve as abodes for the bees, for nurseries and supplies of food, for rearing the young and for winter use. Each is fourteen inches in diameter in the widest parts, and five and a-half inches deep inside. Nine bars range along the top of each. These are not movable, but serve as guides to the bees for building straight combs. Between them, and beyond the outer ones, are ten narrow strips made to slide in grooves in the bars, so that the top is completely and securely covered. The figure represents the way in which the slides shift. The top box _D_ is that in which the honey to be taken by the bee-master is stored. It is four inches in depth, its other dimensions being similar to those of the boxes below it. It is furnished with only seven or eight, instead of nine bars, the object being to induce the bees to build longer cells for depositing honey in. This not only secures a greater quantity for less expenditure of wax, but prevents the queen laying eggs in them, if she should go up into the top box. [Illustration: Fig. 57.--Stewarton Hive.] For her majesty, finding it impossible to reach the bottom of the cells to place her eggs as she has been accustomed to do, will retire to the lower boxes, where she finds places perfectly adapted to her instincts or her needs. The honey is thus kept free from brood, and it presents a massive and rich appearance. Bees seem greatly to appreciate this form of hive, and a strong swarm will often fill the two lower boxes with comb in ten days. To get the full advantage, however, of this system, it is best to put a swarm into each of the lower compartments, or in the first and third, if two colonies of bees cannot be procured on the same day. If they be kept asunder a few days by slides with perforations, to let their odours commingle, they may be allowed to join their forces, and the queens will settle the sovereignty by a battle, ending in the death of the weaker. When the stock-boxes have become well filled with bees, admission may be given to the honey-box, and, in a good season, splendid combs of honey may be secured in this way. We have seen supers of great weight and beauty taken from the Stewarton hive. Its merits have been well described from time to time in _The Journal of Horticulture_ and _The Bee Journal_, by a "A Renfrewshire Bee-keeper." Mr. C. W. Smith designed a modification of the above hives which he named the Carr-Stewarton. In it the square form is substituted for the octagonal, so as to secure the interchangeability of all combs--an important matter in the practical affairs of an apiary. The chief points of recommendation in the Stewarton hive seem to be, its excellence as winter quarters for its inhabitants, and the readiness with which large quantities of super-honey are stored in it.