On the question of the best hive to use in commercial bee-keeping, on either a large or small scale, it is hard to particularise. Generalisation, however, is not difficult here. Every bee-master has his own ideas as to details, but all are happily agreed on the main constructive principles. Experience has fairly well decided that a good queen, under the modern system of intensive culture, will require for her brood a comb-surface of about 1,800 square inches. A brood-nest of smaller capacity than this is liable to cramp her operations at their highest, and anything in excess of it will simply mean so much new honey lost to the super-chambers, where alone the bee-master requires it. Honey stored in the brood-nest, except during the off-season, is loss instead of gain. The best hive, therefore, will contain just as many brood-combs in movable frames as will ensure the right capacity; and all comb-frames throughout the bee-farm must be of the same size, so that they will be strictly interchangeable among the various hives. This is a vital point in successful bee-culture, because it enables the master not only to equalise the strength of his stocks by transferring combs of hatching brood from one to the other; but he can also give to penurious stocks frames of sealed honey from the abundance of their neighbours, and he can unite the weak colonies, thus rendering all strong. For the rest, the hives must be so made that heat will be perfectly retained in the cold season, and as perfectly excluded during the sultriest time of year. Double walls round the brood-chamber are a necessity in the changeable British climate, where chilly days are always probable during ten months out of the twelve. As well as honey-production, the bee-farmer will find an equal source of profit in the production of wax. Just as there is nothing like leather, beeswax holds its own as a marketable commodity in spite of paraffin substitutes. But if it is almost universally degraded by adulteration, the fault lies with the beemen, who have never seriously attempted to meet the demand for it. Wax-production on a large scale is perfectly feasible, and there is little doubt that it could be developed into an important British industry, as it used to be in mediæval days. Yet these are times of revolution: the honey-bee may yet find herself entirely restored to her old national avocation—of bringing light to our darkness, and to our bodies one of the best and purest of foods. CHAPTER XVII BEE-KEEPING AND THE SIMPLE LIFE