226 A Modem Bee-Farm 



others made some practical demonstration of the fact, but 

 neither of -them preceded Dr. Stroud. Simple tiering hives 

 were used for the purpose in America, similar to Fig. 63, but 

 the plan was adopted solely for queen-rearing purposes. So 

 far as is known, Mr. Wells, of Aylesford, has been the first to 

 reduce the matter to practical working as a system in honey pro- - 

 duction. The entire correspondence upon the subject will be 

 found in the British Bee Journal of the current year . and in the 

 issue of November loth, 1892, after stating he had made up his 

 mind to work none but ' two-queen ' colonies in future, upon 

 further consideration and in deference to other expressed 

 opinions, he says : " In order to compare results, and make the 

 matter as plain as possible, I decided to change my plans, and 

 work five single-queened stocks through the season, and very 

 carefully note results. It will, perhaps, not be out of place just 

 to say once more that the double stocks have two queens in each 

 [one queen in each brood chamber], divided in centre of hive 

 with the thin wood perforated dummy, so that neither queen 

 nor bees can pass beyond their own part of the hive ; but at 

 superiiig-time a sheet of queen-excluder zinc is placed on top 

 of the frames, and on this the super, into which both lots of 

 bees are allowed to run and mix together as they please,. 



Most of my hives hold fourteen standard frames, 



though I consider a hive of this size is not large enough for 

 the two queens, and so when more room is wanted for brood, 

 I put a box of shallow frames, with a thin solid dummy in 

 centre, exactly owy the perforated one below. This I thought 

 would give plenty of breeding rOom, and I wished to prevent 

 swarming as much as possible. I have not, however, made a 

 success of that part of the business yet. . ; . . , . The 

 five double hives gave 762 lbs. surplus extracted, and 27 lbs- 

 surplus sections ; total, 789 lbs. The five single qufeen hives 

 205 lbs. ; or a grand total from all the hives of 994 lbs." 



The figures showing the financial situation for the year, 

 given by such a practical and painstaking apiarist as 



