126 APPENDIX. 



the bees to take their own course and to swarm. This is the opinion 

 of the English apiarians generally, unless we except Nutt and Bagster. 

 In Dr. Thacher's work pp. 71, 72, 73, are some minute statements 

 and calculations on this point which seem to go against the prevention 

 of swarming. Dr. Thacher's calculation is that each hive, if allowed 

 to swarm, will yield, in addition to the swarms, say, twenty five pounds 

 of honey, and that in the course of six years there would be an in- 

 crease from one hive to the amount of sixty three stocks, yielding 

 1,515 lbs. of honey. A hive kept by Mr. Williams, of Ashfield, and 

 which did not swarm, yielded but 384 pounds of honey and 47 pounds 

 of wax. The advantage is here greatly in favor of swarming. But this 

 amount from Mr. Williams' hive appears to me unaccountably small. 

 The stock of bees must have gone on increasing at the rate of, say, 

 40,000 bees a year. Allowing the swarm to have consisted originally 

 of 20,000, and the increase which I have supposed to take place, and 

 the diminution to be one half the births annually, there ought to have 

 been in the hive at the end of six years, no fewer than 140,000 bees. 

 Now if, by Dr. Thacher's calculation, a common swarm yields 25 pounds 

 annually more honey than they consume, there ought to have been at 

 the end of six years, 625 pounds. This does not equal the produce 

 by the non-swarming method. But I think 25 pounds annually, too 

 low a rate. Taking but about one third of the amount obtained by 

 Mr. Nutt's new hives, (that is, as I have said, 296 pounds,) we shall 

 have, say, 100 pounds a year from a non-swarming hive, and this 

 calculation, if it should prove correct for this country, would throw 

 the advantage on the side of non-swarming. Tiie whole subject is, 

 however, very uncertain, and can only be tested by experience. I 

 have several hives prepared for the express purpose of experimenting, 

 and will give you the results of those experiments at some future period. 

 "There is one experiment which I design trying the next season, and 

 which may throw some light upon this part of the subject. I have 

 built a large hive with two large collateral boxes, each capable of hold- 

 ing a swarm. The communication between them is by means of aper- 

 tures cut in the sides. These are closed by perforated tin slides. I 

 design to put a swarm into the centre hive, and one into each of the 

 collaterals, affording the latter an egress by the front of the box, sep- 

 arate from the entrance to the main hive. After they have worked 3 

 or 4 weeks separately, and a similar odor shall have diffused itself 

 throughout the three boxes, by means of the perforated tins, I shall 

 withdraw th« slides and introduce them to each other, closing the ex- 



