10 A Modern Bee-Farm 



his area, or range of bee-flight. In a very favourable locaUty, 

 or where the owner plants bee-forage, the average will be still 

 higher, and 200, or more, may be placed in one apiary without 

 any apparent diminution in the " out-put " per hive. 



,The editor of the British Bee yourml states that he obtained 

 1360 lbs. from seven hives. This was extracted honey, but 

 his results in comb have often exceeded 100 lbs. per hive. 

 These weights were obtained from a limited number of stocks : 

 it will be seldom, however, that such returns will be gained 

 where a larger number are to , be managed. I have had 

 50 lbs. stored by a single colony in seven days : and in 1886 

 had a queen sent me, whose bees, without attempting to 

 swarm, had given upwards of 250 lbs. of honey, about 200 lbs. 

 of which were in nicely-finished sections. Such results show 

 what is possible if the apiarist will always breed from the best 

 strains, as set forth in the chapter upon that subject. 



What Kind of Honey to Produce. 



It has often been stated that it pays best to run an apiary 

 for extracted honey, but my own opinion is that to obtain the 

 most desirable crop, the apiarist should work for both that and 

 comb honey. Certainly a larger quantity of extracted honey 

 can be obtained, but this will stand in the proportion of 50 to 

 30 lbs. of comb. Most practical men will admit this is 

 correct, and upon this basis I have made out the estimates. 

 It will be noticed that there is little difference between the 

 first cost on stock-in-trade, whether comb or extracted honey 

 is worked for, but the season's produce of extracted honey 

 costs for receptacles more than three times that of the other. 

 After the combs are once established for extracting, with no 

 furtheV outlay in foundation, and a large quantity of new wax 

 from the cappings, the balance may be in favour of this class 

 of honey ; but against this we have to place more labour, and 

 that not of the cleanest. I have pubUshed these estimates 

 that the beekeeper may have a ready means of making his 



