218 Beekeeping 



in moving a large number of colonies, it may be cheaper or 

 easier for the beekeeper to own two or more lots of bees and 

 supplies. The expense of transportation and the danger 

 involved are probably the factors which determine the feasi- 

 bility of moving from south to north or from sage in Cali- 

 fornia to alfalfa in Utah or Colorado. In the South, espe- 

 cially where bees can be purchased at a low price, it would 

 not seem profitable to move apiaries over long distances. 

 The shipping of bees in wire-cloth cages may in the future 

 remove the present limitations. 



It would certainly seem that a northern beekeeper is 

 not embracing all his opportunities if he quits work when his 

 bees can no longer get nectar, while there are still hundreds 

 of places in the South or even in the tropics where he might 

 maintain apiaries with profit in the winter. When it is 

 recalled that the professional beekeeper is a relatively new 

 factor in beekeeping, it may still be expected that the future 

 development of the industry will show an increase in migra- 

 tory beekeeping, or at least in migratory beekeepers. 



OVERSTOCKING 



The bugbear of the specialist beekeeper is the fear that he 

 will overstock his localities, that is, place in each apiary so 

 many colonies that there will not be enough nectar available 

 to permit the colonies to store approximately the maximum 

 profitable surplus. Since there are few places in the United 

 States that are now overstocked, this subject worries the 

 beekeeper more than the facts warrant. Some beekeepers 

 have found it practical to keep several hundred colonies in 

 one apiary. E. W. Alexander, Delanson, New York, found 

 it more profitable, in an exceptionally good buckwheat 

 region, to keep over 700 colonies in one yard than to establish 

 out-apiaries. In the South and West large apiaries are not 

 infrequent. 



While it is desirable to keep bees in as few places as possi- 

 ble to avoid duplication of apparatus and time lost in trans- 



