50 THE BEE-KEEPER’S MANUAL. 
keeper whose object is the raising of honey rather 
than of bees for sale, has one single purpose to be 
steadfastly kept in view—how to secure the largest 
number of strong stocks. No swarm, therefore, must 
be allowed to escape from a hive on such scale as to 
leave the hive otherwise than strong, or indeed ‘to be 
otherwise than strong itself. All this is now readily 
practicable from the opportunities, by extracting single 
frames and so forth, of raising a single swarm from 
two, three, or half a dozen different hives, or of obtain- 
ing two swarms from three hives, three from four, or 
any other modification which existing circumstances 
may seem to recommend. 
Mrs. Tupper, in her before-mentioned American 
prize essay, makes the following practical remarks 
upon this point: ‘‘In most places I think bee-keepers 
will find it pay best to secure a moderate increase 
every year by making one swarm, very early, from 
four or five old ones. In this way, quite as much, if 
not more, surplus honey will be obtained as when 
there is no increase, and the value of the new swarms 
(whatever that is in your locality) is just so much 
extra profit.” The explanation of the freedom from 
loss by swarming upon this system lies in the fact that 
a change into an empty hive gives the bees a spur to 
extra exertion; for though this would be nothing like 
sufficient to balance the loss above described, where an 
entire swarm is taken from one and the same hive, yet 
it is sufficient, or even more so, when each of several 
colonies is only just appreciably diminished in popula- 
tion. When so managed, an occasional renovation 
has everything to be urged upon its side, not the 
