264 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



the most unfavourable years, a hive, headed by 

 a young and vigorous queen, can be relied upon 

 to get itself into the finest fettle by the time the 

 main crops are ready for exploitation. In this 

 case the beeman has only to make certain from 

 time to time that no stock is in absolute want of 

 the ordinary means of subsistence. 



But in those warm, favoured regions of the 

 south-west, the lands of the apple-blossom and the 

 heather, where there is a very early and a very 

 late harvest to be gathered, a different system must 

 be pursued. Here we touch on the second grand 

 principle of successful bee-keeping — the necessity 

 for having in all hives only the most prolific mother- 

 bees. For profitable honey - getting a queen 

 should seldom be kept beyond her second year. 

 After that she is usually of little account, and 

 should be superseded, either by the bee-master or 

 the bees. But where a queen has been over-stimu- 

 lated by feeding to raise an immense population in 

 the spring of the year, she is rarely capable of 

 another supreme effort in the autumn. The best 

 policy, therefore, if the heather-harvest is an im- 

 portant one, is to remove the old queens as soon 

 as the spring work is over, and to substitute for 

 them queens that are in their best season, but at 

 the beginning of their resources instead of at the 

 end. In this way another huge army of workers 

 is soon born to the hive, and the double harvest is 

 secured. 



