82 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 
we certainly would secure a much Jarger surplus. Our experiments 
so far along this line have been so encouraging that I expect to test 
it thoroughly another summer. I really enjoy testing and working 
out new methods, and I am thankful I have sons who can fill my piace 
when I am gone. The young honey-producers of the future can not 
afford to remain long in the ruts we older men have made, but with 
renewed perseverance they must push forward until they have made 
great improvements over many methods now in use. 
In the above I have given our experience so far as we have gone 
on this subject. Had my health last summer been so I could have 
tested this more thoroughly as to its bearing on natural swarming I 
should have done so; but as it was, I could do but little. To me it does 
not look reasonable that, to increase the number of queens in a hive, 
would in any way prevent the colony from a desire to swarm; but still 
it is barely possible that it may. 
A particular friend of mine has been anxious for me to give our 
experience on this subject to the public, so that others could test it also 
this coming summer; otherwise I would not have written this article 
before another fall, for I have always made it a rule to write nothing 
but what I was perfectly sure was fact, and for that reason I desired to 
test this whole subject another summer before making it public. I ex- 
pect this new method, in common with some others I have given, will 
be tried in a bungling way by a few bee-keepers so that there will be 
no possibility of its being a success in their hands. Then these parties 
will be the first to send in their reports condemning the whole thing. 
But, fortunately, this class is but small, and is daily growing less. This 
is encouraging; and when we all do the best we can we hope to leave 
the world the better for our having lived. 
April, 19v7. 
