and its Economic Management. 245 



situation have less difficulty in maintaining that animal heat 

 so necessary for the preservation of life. 



We can therefore meet them half-way as it were, and while 

 not removing the stores can alternate heavy combs with empty 

 frames, thus bringing the cluster into a more compact mass, 

 and entirely avoiding the frequent destruction of the un- 

 fortunate outer seams of bees. 



Mr. Wells shews 994 lbs. of honey (nearly all extracted) 

 from five single hives and five double-queen stocks ; that is, 

 from fifteen stocks in all. The dual queen system, therefore, 

 with its more cumbersome and inconvenient hives does not 

 compare favourably with the result of 1,360 lbs. obtained by 

 Mr. Cowan from seven single-queen hives. 



In 1874, Mr. Cowan also reported 907 lbs. from twelve 

 hive^, of which 707 lbs. were comb-honey. 



In the following year, a very wet season, the same gentle- 

 man took the first prize at the Crystal Palace show for comb- 

 honey taken from one colony and weighing 80J lbs. ; besides 

 this, 20 lbs. of extracted had also been removed from the same 

 hive. 



J _- 



Just as the proportion of adult bees, before the opening of 

 the season, exceeds those being nursed up to maturity, so may 

 the prosperity of a colony be gauged. This does not imply 

 that an already limited brood nest should be reduced by 

 application of the fads generally proposed, but it points to the 

 absolute fact that such disproportion should not have existed 

 at all. 



