The Townsend Bee Book 75 
nies, was not fed, although it was otherwise in just as good condi- 
tion, for each colony had a good deal of brood started before the 
frost. I went to this apiary about a week after the frost, and, to 
my sorrow, I found that the bees had dragged out the drones, and 
the conditions seemed to be more like those in September. This 
was when the raspberries were just coming into bloom. The yield 
from this apiary was 30 lbs. of surplus per colony; and if there 
was any difference in the two locations, this last apiary had the 
better one. I am sure that I could have obtained 4000 lbs. more 
honey from this yard if the bees had been fed 500 to 1000 lbs. of 
sugar syrup in the spring.’’ 
CHAPTER XI 
Making Up Winter Losses 
A REVIEW OF SOME OF THE SUCCESSFUL PLANS FOR 
MAKING INCREASE 
Comb-honey producers may be striving to keep down increase, 
but extracted-honey men are more interested in plans for making 
up winter losses; for if their bees are handled as they should be 
there will not be enough natural swarms to make up for the loss 
through the year. Each season, therefore, there will be some 
artificially made swarms, and the purpose of this article is to show 
how to do this to the best advantage. 
There is a rule to be observed in the making of artificial 
increase that is very important. The brood should be left undis- 
turbed for the first eight days after being made queenless to allow 
the bees time to cap all the unsealed brood. This rule or principle 
is observed in the Somerford, Alexander, and Chapman plans, all 
of which will be considered here; and if beekeepers would keep 
this thought in mind, and work out a system of artificial swarming 
in which no unsealed brood is carried away from the parent 
colony, much better success could be expected. It is well known 
that, when bees are carried to a new location in the process of 
making artificial increase, if the apiarist is not well versed in the 
