140 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



set the bees breeding before the sun does. It is 

 not till the apple blossom comes in still, warm 

 weather that the stores of a rapidly breeding hive 

 will overtake the daily expenditure on food. And 

 then the bees seem to strain every nerve to raise 

 a population that shall bring the community to 

 starvation. 



Furious as seems the business of the hive normally 

 in early April, it does not amount to the honey- 

 gathering force that the bee-master appreciates. If 

 he wishes to profit by the apple harvest, he must 

 considerably hasten matters, so as to get a June crowd 

 of bees in April. By setting a little honey flowing 

 from a bruised comb, he tricks the bees into a belief 

 that the season of plenty has begun. As soon as the 

 brood-nest has spread to two combs, he moves them 

 apart and puts an empty comb between, so that the 

 bees hasten to fill up the middle and unite the nursery 

 area. He must have the queen laying vigorously for 

 about six weeks before the honey-flow occurs that he 

 wishes to make use of. So if she is laying a thousand 

 eggs a day, it will be seen that twenty, thirty, forty 

 thousand bees will be available to store honey before 

 the honey harvest is gone. Still not enough. The 

 bee-master must join the population of two hives, 

 either by putting two communities together under a 

 common upper story or by gathering frames of brood 

 from other hives, and thus " doubling " the one that 

 has to produce a surplus. Thus we may, in a season, 

 take forty, eighty, or a hundred pounds of honey from 

 a hive and still leave it the thirty that are necessary 

 to carry it through the winter. 



It is not the bee's way to store honey so far in 



