AUTUMN MANAGEMENT. 213 
which pollen supplies to recruit them from the 
exhaustion following their summer labours, con- 
joined with the sharpened appetites which a dimin- 
ished temperature begets. They will cease to resort 
to it in the depth of winter, but immediately upon 
their return to activity it will become a primary 
requisite, and the socalled “ artificial pollen” will 
then be found an invaluable alternative. By that 
time, however, the hive may safely be opened, or 
themselves will be able to fly forth to appropriate 
the proffered supply; what is necessary now is to 
ensure their having sufficient to last till this period 
arrives. 
Autumn Population.—The question of the number 
of bees contained in a colony as they are settling 
down for the cold season is no whit less important 
than that of the provision to be supplied them, the 
reasons for which will be fully stated at the 
beginning of the chapter on “‘ Winter Management.” 
Three main points are to be attended to: first, 
that there is a prolific queen; second, that the 
entire population is as large as possible; and third, 
that breeding is carried on to the latest date that 
can be induced. The state of affairs must there- 
fore be frequently inspected, the queen, if necessary, 
being changed, and small stocks united together on 
the method explained in the following section. 
Sometimes it is found that by the middle of 
August the queen has practically ceased to lay, 
and consequently by the time that the great 
spring hatching is coming about, there will either be 
no living workers left in the hive, or the few that there 
