ARTIFICIAL SWAKMLNG. 177 



honey-harvest will pass away, and the bees be able to ob- 

 tain very little from it. During all this tune of meagre 

 accumulations, the orchards may present 



" One boundless blush, one white empurpled shower 

 Of mingled blossoms ;" | 



and tens of thousands of bees from stronger stocks may 

 be engaged all day in sipping the fragrant sweets, so that 

 every gale which "fans its odoriferous wings" about 

 their dwellings, dispenses 



" Native perfumes, and whispers whence they stole 

 Those balmy spoils."* 



By the time the feeble stock is prepared if at all to 

 swarm, the honey-harvest is almost over, and the new 

 colony, instead of gathering enough for its own use, may 

 starve, unless fed. Bee-keeping, with colonies which are 

 feeble in the Spring, except in extraordinary seasons and 

 locations, is emphatically nothing but " folly and vexation 

 of spirit." 



I have shown how a handsome profit may, in a favorable 

 season, be realized from a strong stock, which has swarmed 

 early, and but once. If the parent-stock throws a second 

 swarm, unless it issues early, and the honey-season is good, 

 it will seldom prove of any value, if managed on the ordi- 

 nary plan. It usually perishes in the Winter, unless pre- 

 viously destroyed, and the parent-stock will not only 

 gather no surplus honey unless it was secured before the 

 first swarm issued but will' often perish also. Thus the 

 novice who was so delighted with the rapid increase of 

 his colonies, begins the next season with no more than he 

 had the previous year, and with the entire loss of all the 

 time bestowed upon his bees. 



* The scent of the hives, during the height of the gathering season, usually 

 indicates from what sources the bees have gathered their supplies. 

 8*- 



