Beehive improvements

Claim 1

A beehive comprising a bottom board having a pair of side longitudinal locator strips fixed thereto in parallel relationship and having one end transverse locator strip fixed thereto between the longitudinal locator strips, the longitudinal locator strips having interior longitudinal inclined faces, a hive body portion compriing connected vertical end walls which are trapezoidal and downwardly tapering and side walls which are inclined and downwardly convergent and adapted to engage matingly between the inclined faces of the longitudinal locator strips on the bottom wall, an overhead hive section resting bodily on the top edges of the inclined side walls of the hive body portion at one end portion of the latter, brood frames within the hive body portion beneath the overhead hive section and having transversely extending top bars, depressed support strips for the opposite ends of the top bars fixed to the interior surfaces of said side walls below the top edges thereof and disposed beneath the overhead hive section whereby the top bars of said brood frames are supported at an elevation below the bottom of the overhead hive section, said top bars being recessed in their opposite sides to form bee crawl spaces between the top bars when the latter are placed in side-by-side contacting relationship, whereby bees may travel from the brood frames in the hive body portion to the overhead hive section and vice-versa, filler strips for the recesses of the top bars to close said crawl spaces thereby enabling the hive body portion to be used alone without the overhead hive section, and honey frames within the remainder of the hive body portion beyond the overhead hive section and having top bars whose opposite ends rest on the top edges of the inclined side walls of the hive body portion.