ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 5 
this line. For some time I have been thinking this matter over, and I 
have come to the conclusion that I never gave my bees what might be 
called the best of care, neither have I ever seen a man who did. Now, 
why is this? Simply because we have got the idea into our heads that 
we must have a great number of colonies in order to make a little money. 
Now, this is a big mistake, and the sooner we realize it the better. 
Let us apply the same management to bee-keeping that we see put 
into practice by all the successful business men of the country. They 
make the most out of every thing connected with their business that 
they possibly can. Is it so with us? I don’t think it is. There are but 
very few who give their bees extra care, consequently their surplus is 
small per colony, and they may become discouraged. Now let us look 
this matter over and see if we can not do much better in the future 
with fewer colonies than many of us are now doing with several hun- 
dred; and, by way of explaining this matter, I will suppose that on 
April 15, you have 100 fairly good colonies that were just taken from 
their winter quarters, and that each colony contains a good well-developed 
Italian queen not over ten months old that has been reared from some 
good honey-gathering strain of bees. I shall take it for granted that 
your hives are filled with nice worker .combs. 
We will commence the season’s work by putting a feeder under 
every hive and giving each colony about 1% cents’ worth of extracted 
honey, or sugar syrup, which must be made very thin, of about the con- 
sistency of nectar, and feed them about this amount every day that the 
weather is such they can not gather anything from flowers until about 
the last of May. This will require on an average, one season with 
another, about 50 cents’ worth of honey or sugar per colony; and, if 
properly done, you will have, May 25, every hive crowded with brood 
and maturing bees at the rate of 2,000 or more a day. 
About two weeks previous to this we should start the rearing of 
four or five hundred queen-cells, which are now, May 26, about ready to 
hatch. Now we will divide our 100 colonies, making two of each, and 
fix them so that the queenless part will mature two or more of these 
ripe queen-cells or virgins into nice laying queens; then about the last 
of June we will separate these colonies that have two or more laying 
queens, making 100 more increase, or 300 colonies all together. 
The old colony, or the part that has had the old laying queen from 
the first, we have kept busy drawing out frames of foundation into nice 
extracting-combs, and we have also kept them from any desire to swarm 
by taking their combs of capped brood away as fast as they had some 
to spare, and giving this brood to this newly made increase. 
In this way of managing your bees you have no swarming to bother 
with, and at the same time you have increased your 100 colonies to 300, 
and all are in good condition for any harvest that commences after 
July 4. 
Now, what I consider a fairly good location (and no man ever 
ought to bother trying to produce honey in a poor location) will furnish 
