208 THE BEE keeper's MANUAL. 



and tens of thousands of bees from stronger slocks, 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 that the feeble stock is prepared to swarm, if 

 it swarm at all that season, the honey-harvest is almost over, 

 and the new colony will seldom be able to gather enough 

 for its own use, so that unless fed, it must perish the suc- 

 ceeding Winter. Bee-keeping with colonies feeble in the 

 Spring, is most emphatically nothing but " folly and vexa- 

 tion of spirit." 



I have shown how the bee-keeper, with a strong stock- 

 hive which has swarmed early and but once, may in a fa- 

 vorable season realize handsome profits from his bees. If 

 the parent stock thjows a second swarm, then, as a general 

 rule, unless this swarm was very early, and the honey sea- 

 son good, if managed on the ordinary plan, it will seldom 

 prove of any value. It will almost always perish in the 

 Winter, if it does not desert its hive in the Fall, and the 

 family from which it issued, will not only gather no surplus 

 honey, (unless it was secured before the first swarm issued,) 

 but will very often perish likewise. Thus the inexperienced 

 owner who was so delighted with the rapid increase of his 

 colonies, begins the next season with no more colonies than 

 he had the year before, and has very often lost all the time 

 he has bestowed upon his bees. I can, to be sure, on my 

 plan, prevent the death of the bees, and can build up all the 

 feeble colonies, so as to make them strong and powerful : 



* The scent of the hives, during the height of the gathering sea- 

 son, will usually inform us from what sources the bees have gathered 

 their supplies. 



