FIRST PRINCIPLES OF BEE-KEEPING. 129 



time, that in winter a great number of bees in a hive 

 will eat less food than a smaller number. 



I can also explain the advantage of a number of 

 bees in another way. Suppose I have a hive that 

 contains 40,000 bees; and of these, we will say, 30,000 

 go out to gather honey, and 10,000 stay at home to 

 keep it warm. And then — to compare with this strong 

 hive — I have two others, each containing just half the 

 number of bees, namely, 20,000. In each of these 

 two hives the same heat must be kept up, as in the 

 first hive, and, to effect this, the same number of bees — 

 namely, 10,000 — must remain at home, and so only 

 10,000 can go out from each hive to gather honey ; that 

 is to say, — adding these gatherers together, — we have 

 only 20,000 gatherers from both hives, whereas we 

 had 30,000 from the one hive at first ; so that we 

 have actually 10,000 more gatherers from the one 

 strong hive than we have from the two ^eak ones put 

 together. Always remember, then, ' the golden rule.' 



And now if you are going to 'keep bees' you very 

 likely ask. What kind of bees shall I keep ? Are 

 they to be Italians, or the common bees .' And, what 

 kind of hive am I to get ? If you ask my advice, I 

 would say that you had better not trouble yourself 

 with such questions at first. You will learn, after 

 a time, that Italians are the best and most profit- 

 able, and you will learn a great deal about hives, but 

 never mind all this at present. Probably you want to 

 begin without spending much money, and if so, your 

 best plan will be, as I have said, to buy a stock of 

 common bees in a straw skep, and wait a year, and 

 see what you can do with it. 



K 



