328 OVERSTOCKING. 



stocks of twenty-five, forty and fifty-nine hives each 

 continued to gain slowly through June, the large 

 stock of upwards of two hundred hives would have 

 rapidly grown lighter but for liberal feeding. 



However, during July and August the pasture was 

 so abundant as to afford the bees all the honey they 

 could gather. But during September and October 

 there was evidently not enough pasturage in reach 

 to feed so many bees during these months ; while 

 stocks consisting of from ten to twenty hives, sold 

 and carried from five to twenty miles away from any 

 other bees, and in no better pasturage, but each bee 

 having a large range, gathered and stored honey 

 rapidly during the same time. 



In the spring of 1860 there were upwards of two 

 hundred and twenty hives of bees located at differ- 

 ent places, but confined to the same range of pastur- 

 age that the bees of the seventy-three hives were the 

 previous year. The result was, that the pasture was 

 so thoroughly overstocked that constant feeding was 

 required. Even with that assistance, there were not 

 over one hundred and fifty colonies increase, part of 

 which were-natural swarms and the balance divisions. 

 Although a number of full hives were left standing, 

 for the purpose of making surplus honey, not one of 

 them succeeded in filling a single box during the 

 whole season. This great deficiency of pasturage 

 was, to some extent, owing to the clearing up of a 

 considerable quantity of land that had afforded pastur- 

 age the previous year. 



