OOMMBNOINQ BEEKEEPING. gj 



CHAPTER XVI. 

 COMMENCING BEE-KEEPINC. 



149. Three Words of Advice may be useful to anyone who 

 proposes to try his hand at bee-keeping, viz. : — Begin 



(i) Moderately. 



(2) Prudently. 



(3) Intelligently. 



150. Begin on a Small Scale — To begin moderately, begin 

 on a small scale, with one or two stocks. Few things have 

 done more to discourage beginners from persevering with the 

 industry, than has the mistake of starting with more stocks 

 than they could easily manage before they had gained the 

 necessary experience. In due time, when you have learned 

 something of the habits and wants of bees, you will be able 

 to add to the number of your colonies and, perhaps, to attend 

 to twelve or twenty stocks without greater expenditure of time 

 than, at the outset, you will find necessary to devote to two. 



151. Purchasing Bees. — To begin prudently, provide your- 

 self with the best hives and appliances that you can get; not 

 necessarily the most expensive, but the best. And if you start 

 by purchasing bees, do not hesitate to give a little more money 

 for a really good stock or swarm. By " Stock " is meant an 

 established colony of bees in a hive. But stocks differ so 

 much in value that if one be worth £1 another may not be 

 worth half-a-crown, and a third may be worth less than noth- 

 ing. By " Swarm " is meant a queen, and attendant bees 

 which have just abandoned a hive (19). These also vary in 

 value from los. or iss. to nothing, according to their numbers, 

 condition of health, the ages of their queens, and the date of 

 their swarming (205). Most important is it to provide against 

 purchasing, or admitting as a free gift to your apiary, bees 

 that are diseased or that have come from a diseased hive, a 



