FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE -BEES 24'i 



number of bees, that counts. And 60,000 bees in one hive will 

 store more honey than will the same number of bees equally di- 

 vided ill f^^•o Lives. So in planning for increase I g-eiiCrally 

 count that the colonies that are drawn upon for increase shall 

 make that their business without being expected to be called 

 upon to store surplus, while those at work for surplus are to be 

 left in the fullest strength possible throughout the season. You 

 cannot make something out of nothing, and if increase is to be 

 made you may as well devote a certain number of colonies to 

 that business. 



INCREASING BY TAKING TO OUT- APIARY. 



The case may be different in a locality where there is a 

 long and late flow, but I am talking about this locality with 

 white clover as the dependence for a harvest. In the year 1880 

 I took 1200 pounds of honey from twelve colonies and increased 

 them to eighty-one; but the honey taken was extracted buck- 

 wheat, and I never knew such a buckwheat harvest before or 

 since. Perhaps it will be well to tell more explicitly how that 

 increase was made. The success achieved will be somewhat di- 

 minished when I say that the bees were supplied with ready- 

 built combs, so they had no combs to build. But they had no 

 help from other colonies in the way of bees or brood except a 

 few eggs from which to rear queens. 



The twelve colonies were taken from the home apiary to 

 the Wilson apiary, and were prepared in advance for dividing. 

 From part of them the queens were taken and queen-cells thus 

 secured. Ten-frame hives were used at that time, and by some 

 help from others of the twelve a hive would contain ten frames 

 of brood and bees without any queen, a sealed queen-cell on 

 each frame of brood. After standing a day or so this hive 

 would be taken to the ont-apiary, and the ten frames put in ten 

 different hives. Of course every bee stayed just where it was 

 put. To each of these was added another frame of brood and 

 adhering bees that had been brought along, and whether these 

 bees were queenless or not there was. nothing for them but to 

 stay where' they were put. In the course of time these first- 

 formed "nuclei were strong enough to help others, and the latest 

 nuclfiii 'were built up at once into fair colonies. 



