HOW TO KEEP BEES FOR PROFIT 



them, making twenty colonies of the nine he 

 bought, using some queen cells I had on hand 

 for his surplus colonies. He then attended to 

 those twenty colonies so they were all strong 

 at the commencement of our buckwheat har- 

 vest. I then loaned him twenty hives of empty 

 combs to put on top of his colonies to extract 

 from. He took two thousand eight hundred 

 and forty-nine pounds of extracted honey 

 from those nine colonies and their increase, 

 and left them in good condition so that every 

 one came out the next spring in fine order. 



Another son, the same season, took one 

 colony, divided into three, and received three 

 hundred and forty-seven pounds of extracted 

 honey. They also came through the follow- 

 ing winter in good condition. I speak of 

 these cases simply to show that it is not neces- 

 sary to keep hundreds of colonies in order to 

 get a little honey. If you will keep only 

 strong colonies and give them the best of care, 

 you will soon find both pleasure and profit 

 in bee-keeping. 



160 



