Regional Differences within the United States 219 



portation, there is another factor to be considered. The 

 size of an apiary should be determined chiefly by the number 

 of colonies that the beekeeper can manipulate in a single day 

 during the honey-flow. If he finds that he can usually care 

 for seventy-five colonies in a day under his system of manage- 

 ment, then that number is ideal for his apiaries. He can 

 then arrange his out-apiaries so that each will receive a 

 visit as frequently as the conditions demand. The amount 

 of work that can be done in a day will increase with experi- 

 ence and the out-apiaries correspondingly may be increased 

 in size, for they should be large enough to furnish a full 

 day's work, unless there is some means of rapid transporta- 

 tion available. With modern transportation facilities the 

 distance to out-yards is of less importance than formerly 

 and many beekeepers now have motor trucks to carry an 

 extracting outfit and other apparatus and supplies from one 

 apiary to another. Considering the day's work as the deter- 

 mining factor in the size of the apiary, the out-apiaries may 

 be more numerous and closer together than would be the case 

 if each yard were increased to the maximum. In the present 

 undeveloped condition of the beekeeping industry and with 

 so many localities almost untouched by bees, it is not wise 

 to run any risk of overstocking. The location of out- 

 apiaries should be determined by the available forage, the 

 minimum distance between them usually being determined 

 by the distance that bees can fly. 



DADANT OUT-APIARIES 



To illustrate the problem which confronts the beekeeper 

 in the establishment of out-apiaries there is here reproduced 

 a map (Fig. 97), made from one by C. P. Dadant, Hamilton, 

 Illinois, of the apiaries near his home in 1891. He then 

 owned the Home, Sherwood, Villemain and Sack apiaries, 

 the other four shown being apiaries of other beekeepers. 

 All of these are located on land sloping toward the Mississippi 

 River. The Sherwood apiary was the best, giving crops in 



