.74 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



An ordinary hive (and by that I 

 mean such an one, as by tests has 

 been found to be most practicable) 

 will contain from 40,000 to 50,000 

 workers, and as I stated before, this 

 number at least is required to give 

 us good paying results. Now it is 

 easy to figure up the matter, which 

 may be done in this way : a hive on 

 March 1 contains, say, 15,000 bees ; 

 by the latter part of May, it should 

 be increased to at least 40,000, of 

 which two-thirds at least should be 

 effective foragers ; the balance may 

 consist of those five or six days 

 old ; in the meantime all or nearly 

 all of the original 15,000 have died 

 off. Thirty-five days from March 

 1 carries us to April 5, and the in- 

 crease will have been perhaps 15,000 

 bees, with an ordinary queen, one- 

 half of which must remain in the 

 hive ; and of the original 15,000 one- 

 half have died. By following out 

 the calculation in the same propor- 

 tion, it can be seen at once, that a 

 queen that does not lay at least 2,- 

 000 eggs a day from the latter part 

 of May all through the balance of 

 the season is not worth preserving, 

 and should be replaced by a more 

 prolific one. Tests also show us 

 that the honey season is intermit- 

 tent, and that the laying of the queen 

 depends wholly upon whether hon- 

 ey is coming in or not. The ques- 

 tion of stimulative feeding also is of 

 the utmost importance as a factor 

 in the matter of success, and each 

 colony must be carefully watched, 

 in order that a supply of stores may 

 be fed at all times when no honey 

 is being brought in. 



Success depends wholly and en- 



tirely upon an effective force of for- 

 agers, and the supply depends 

 wholly upon the queen ; now, unless 

 the laying power of the queen is 

 adequate to give about such results 

 as I have stated, she is of no value 

 whatever. Extra queens though 

 have been condemned, simply be- 

 cause the owner did not understand 

 the necessit}^ of supplying food, 

 when the flowers ceased to secrete 

 nectar. 



It is of the utmost importance to 

 know the honej^ resources of your 

 locality ; to know not onl}^ the va- 

 rious flora, but also their times of 

 commencing and discontinuing to 

 secrete those liquid sweets, which 

 are the source of revenue to the a- 

 piarist. In the olden time when 

 box hives and brimstone pits were 

 the chief resources of the apiary, it 

 was thought enough to do, to put 

 the swarm into a nail keg, and let 

 it work out its own salvation. In 

 these days it is to be hoped, that 

 noue will attempt to keep bees, 

 without first learning the best 

 ways and means of caring for them, 

 and then applying their knowledge 

 in a careful and attentive manner. 

 Foxboro, Mass., Nov. 1883. 



A GUIDE TO 



THE BEST METHODS OF 



BEEKEEPING. 



Br J. L. Christ. 



( Continued from p. 153.) 



The Swiss mountains, by reason 

 of the many herbs and wild haiden 

 which grow upon them, and the 

 flowers which are so abundant be- 



