FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 151 



The next time there is need to give a super below, this top super 

 is moved down and another empty super put in its place. When 

 the top super is put down, I think the bees start work on i( 

 just a bit sooner than if it had not been above. 



SWARMING NOT DESIRABLE. 



If I were to meet a man perfect in the entire science and 

 art of beekeeping, and were allowed from him an answer to just 

 one question, I would ask for the best and easiest way to pre- 

 vent swarming, for one who is anxious to secure the largest 

 crop of comb honey. There are localities where a large crop 

 of honey is secured in the fall, and in such place, or in any 

 place where the honey-flow is long enough, a larger crop may 

 be secured by increase, but I am not so sure about that. If a 

 man in such a place start in the spring with 75 colonies, he may 

 get a larger crop by increasing early enough to 150, supposing 

 150 colonies to be the largest number his field will bear; but 

 would he not have a still larger crop if he had 150 all through 

 the season and made no increase? However that may be, in my 

 locality, which beekeepers generally would consider a poor one, 

 where white closer is the chief if not the only source from 

 which a crop may be expected, and where the harvest is all too 

 short, if, indeed, it comes at all — in such a place I am satisfied 

 that more honey can be harvested by commencing in the spring 

 with the largest number the field will bear and holding at that 

 number, always provided that the means taken to keep down 

 increase shall in no wise interfere with the best work on the 

 part of the bees. 



If I were working for extracted honey, I suppose the 

 matter might be managed, to a great extent, if not to the fullest 

 extent, by simply giving abundance of room in every direction ; 

 but with comb honey, I do not believe that an abundance of 

 room in the brood-nest is compatible with the largest yield of 

 surplus. 



Or, if I were working for extracted honey, I might at the 

 beginning of the harvest put all the brood over an excluder in 

 an upper story, leaving the queen on empty frames below, but 

 that would hardly work for comb-honey production. 



