126 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



above the average in honey produc- 

 tion, 



I will only gfive you proof based on 

 actual experience. The last season in 

 in Southern Wisconsin was certainly 

 a good one for honey. My home-iield 

 at Monroe is what I call a good white 

 clover location, with some basswood 

 in good basswood j^ears. When I 

 started in there I bought out an apiary 

 that had been established for 25 years 

 without any opposition. I expected to 

 have the field, and bivilt a comfortable 

 home there with the intention of mak- 

 ing a living for my family in the busi- 

 ness; but just about that time another 

 person started in, and has built up an 

 apiary larger than mine! I purposely 

 confined mine to 75 colonies, to prevent 

 overstocking, supposing that he 

 would do the same without any par- 

 ticular understanding regarding the 

 matter. Last season he increased his 

 to 112 colonies, which would make, we 

 might sajs with other scattering col- 

 onies on the field, somewhere near 200. 

 Our best colonies ran for comb honej' 

 produced 75 pounds, while in an apiary 

 in the same county and a similar field, 

 at New Glarus, with only 35 colonies 

 on the field, gave 150 pounds of comb 

 honey from the best colonies. I was 

 there and saw the honey taken off all 

 in a bunch. 



No, Mr. Hutchinson, the teachings 

 of Mr. Alexander's article have been 

 proven false in thousands of instances; 

 and I am away from home today, miss- 

 ing all the comforts that a man of my 

 age ought to have in his own home, 

 because his teachings are not true. 



If it were true that I could go home 

 and gather together, at Monroe, my 

 scattered forces (colonies), have a 

 great big apiary, and get good crops 

 right there where everything is handy 

 and nice (you know how comfortable, 

 for you have been there) , I would not 

 be in such a place as this (Bridgeport) 

 pounding brass for the railroad com- 

 pany till eleven o'clock at night, wait- 

 ing on late trains. I expect to start a 

 I'ttle apiary here; and it will be the 

 only one I will have on an exclusive 

 field. The man who started on my 

 field at Monroe is old, and it is easier 

 for me to leave my home than it would 

 be for him. One of us must go, and I 

 have accepted the inevitable. 



Mr. Morehouse does not make anj' 

 great comparison between a locality 

 that is overstocked, or well stocked, 

 and one having only a limited number 



of colonies, but he brings out the point 

 — well, here is what he says :^ 



I was very much interested in the 

 article in the last Review from a New 

 York correspondent, upon the subject 

 of overstocking. I have never thought 

 this country as badly overstocked as it 

 is represented to be. I think one of 

 the greatest troubles is, it is ?/«der- 

 stocked with really skillful bee-keep- 

 ers. There is too much hap-hazard 

 about the methods used. To illus- 

 trate: In average apiaries here last 

 season, the yield was from nothing to 

 six supers per colony. The six-super 

 colonies were the colonies that were 

 largest at the beginning of the flow. 

 Now, using the "shook swarm system" 

 as a base, why not keep an extra 

 large number of colonies in each 

 apiary, and by uniting on starters, 

 with abundance of super-room at the 

 beginning of the honey flow, make 

 every colony in the apiary a six-super 

 colony? I am going to work on this 

 theory this summer. 



I may as well say here what I ought, 

 perhaps, to have said long ago, and, 

 possibly, ought to say in ever}' issue, 

 and that is, that I publish many 

 things in the Review with which I am 

 not ready to agree. I wish the Re- 

 view to be broad in its views and 

 teachings. I wish it to be fair, and 

 to consider all sides of a question. 

 Still further, I often refrain, purposely, 

 from making any comment upon views 

 that are extremely radical — I wish 

 correspondents to be drawn out, rous- 

 ed up sufficiently to reply, and, that 

 too, without having their minds bias- 

 ed by an editorial. If I thought that 

 the publication, belief in, and adop- 

 tion, of certain views would work any 

 injury, I certainly should utter a word 

 of caution — or else not publish the 

 views at all. I will be frank enough 

 to confess that it did not occur to me 

 that the publication of Mr. Alexander's 

 article would lead bee-keepers to 

 crowd in upon other bee-keepers, and 

 I scarcely think now that such will be 

 the result, so thoroughly has the idea 

 of overstocking taken possession of the 

 minds of bee-keepers. The thought 

 that I had in mind was that many 



