48 THE BEE-KEEPER’S MANUAL. 
general subject of swarming we shall enter more at 
large under the head of “Spring Management.” 
The substance of the foregoing paragraph may 
be made a little more plain to the beginner, who 
may not unreasonably complain of the term “single 
hiving” as specially invented to confuse him. It 
is the other system which retains the single hive ac- 
cording to the ordinary English meaning of the words, 
while the one so called consists in forming a number 
of hives, but each one of them is “single,” that is, 
unprovided with supers or other extra boxes for 
the storage of honey. Were he to follow this system 
exclusively he might multiply his bees at an enormous 
rate, but no one hive would have any appreciable 
amount of honey to spare; while by adhering with 
equal exclusiveness to the depriving system, and 
checking every disposition to swarm by providing fur- 
ther accommodation in the existing hive, he may reap 
immense takings from this one hive, but of course 
he can never overpass a certain limit. The population 
of any one hive, under equal conditions, will remain 
the same year after year, since increase of bees is only 
to be obtained from the increase of queens. Von 
Berlepsch says that he has had certainly a hundred 
thousand bees living at a time in the same hive, 
but this must surely have been under his prodigy of a 
mother bee who laid three times that number of 
eggs per annum, and it will be a practical impossi- 
bility in a general way to attain to such a number. 
Any bee-keeper, therefore, who makes “ progress’ his 
motto will not be content with keeping any one hive 
wholly and permanently to itself, however glorious the 
