252 Beekeeping 



control. He cannot govern the weather or produce honey- 

 plants with profit. There are on the other hand two other 

 factors with which his work must deal. His efforts should 

 be for the purpose (1) of getting plenty of bees of the right 

 age in time for the harvest and (2) of keeping these bees in 

 proper condition for gathering the maximum crop. The 

 first essential is far-reaching and obviously includes the 

 entire care of the colonies to prevent starvation or loss from 

 other causes. It applies especially to the work in the 

 spring. The second essential applies chiefly to the control 

 of swarming. It is well for the beekeeper to keep these two 

 essentials always before him and to ask himself, when he 

 plans any work with the bees, whether it comes under one 

 of these heads. 



The beekeeper may profitably go one step further in the 

 analysis. For example, stimulative feeding in the spring 

 is mentioned earlier in this chapter. He should first of all 

 determine whether stimulative feeding is more profitable 

 than the giving of abundant stores. If he finds that he gets 

 more bees by stimulative feeding, he should then determine 

 whether he gets enough more to justify the expenditure of 

 time and money, or whether he can get a larger total crop 

 by keeping a few more colonies, combined with the giving 

 of abundant stores. An example taken from life may not 

 be amiss, the names being here omitted. Two beekeepers 

 are located in exceptional situations which may be assumed 

 to be equally good. One of these men is skilled in the 

 improvement of his stock and has made significant progress, 

 but the work occupies considerable time. The other bee- 

 keeper feels that he has not the time for this (and he may 

 not have the skill), but he keeps 100 colonies more than his 

 co-worker. In the case just given the beekeeper with the 

 larger number of colonies makes more money, but this illus- 

 tration is by no means given to discourage breeding work. 

 It shows, however, that for that particular region the greater 

 profits come with extensive beekeeping, while in other regions 

 more intensive work might yield better financial returns. 



