and its Economic Management. 205 
What is a Strong Stock ? 
will be a frequent question. Can I explain the situation 
fully? I will endeavour to do so for the benefit of the 
many who never seem to realize that “ Unity is strength,” 
and that nothing less than the most intense power, as 
exhibited in the almost hurricane ‘strength of profitable 
colonies, will ever bring them a reliable income year after 
year. 
You want for the production of honey just that strength 
of numbers which turns the ordinary gentle workers into 
ever suspicious defenders of their home, ready to assail, if 
need be, any intruder who disturbs them without due 
precautions! You want during the summer that teeming 
hive which all day long shows you such a continual stream 
going and coming, that the tiny insects appear almost 
thicker than hailstones! You want, after the removal of 
the surplus receptacles, a hive of ten or twelve frames so 
overcrowded that great lumps of clustering bees hang 
outside until really cold nights compel them to crowd 
inside! This, of course, will not be so, noticeable in the 
Conqueror hive, with its chamber under the stock and the 
well ventilated space around. 
Do you want honey? Honey by the hundredweight 
and by the ton? Then again read, and re-read the 
commencement of this chapter, and let the Autumn not 
pass without a general renovation and uniting of poor 
colonies. Pray do not cling to those miserable weaklings, 
fearing you are sacrificing all hope of future zzcrease. 
Ah! that is just the word; in the completion of that 
last sentence is found the whole trouble. How many 
there are who cannot bring themselves to “close down” 
their scattered forces, and so make their chances of 
wintering almost certain, and ‘positively securing stocks 
