IMPORTANCE OF BEE-KEEPING. 187 



It has been said by some that if a great number 

 of stocks are kept in any one place, the flowers in the 

 neighbourhood will not furnish sufficient honey. But 

 this is quite a mistake, except perhaps as regards a 

 few very barren localities. Some of the greatest 

 authorities assert that no district has ever yet been 

 overstocked. Langstroth says, ' It is difficult to re- 

 press a smile when the owner of a few hives, in a 

 district where as many hundreds might be made to 

 prosper, gravely imputes his ill success to the fact 

 that too many bees are kept in his vicinity. If in 

 the spring a colony of bees is prosperous and healthy, 

 it will gather abundant stores in a favourable season, 

 even if hundreds, equally strong, are in its immediate 

 vicinity, while if it is feeble it will be of little or no 

 value, even if it is in " a land flowing with milk and 

 honey," and there is not another stock within a dozen 

 miles of it' 



In fact, almost any number of hives may be kept, 

 and will give good return if managed well. At all 

 events, in other countries, many more are kept than in 

 England. In some places there are apiaries containing 

 several hundred stocks, and even as many as two or 

 three thousand. 



In Russia, Germany, Austria, Greece, Cyprus, and 

 many other countries, bee-keeping is practised most 

 extensively — far more so than in England — and for a 

 longtime has been anational industry — a position which 

 it has only very recently assumed with us. Langstroth 

 mentions that 'in the province of Attica, in Greece^ con- 

 taining forty-five square miles and 20,000 inhabitants, 

 20,000 hives are kept, each yielding on an average 



