OF MANAGING BEKS. 91 



rated in the hive by a populous community, protects the 

 comb from moulding, and the bees from freezing in the cold- 

 est weather. But the apiarian derives another advantage 

 by keeping his hives full of bees ; he secures afeager quan- 

 tity of honey from a full swarm than from many small ones. 

 The time for making much honey does not usually last more 

 than twenty or thirty days in Vermont, and the greatest pro- 

 portion of honey that is deposited in the hive for winter use 

 is collected in fifteen or twenty days. This renders it very 

 important that the attention of the old stock should not be 

 called off from gathering honey at this titne, to guard their 

 hive from the attacks of moths, to which it is left exposed 

 by the desertion of that part of their body which has accom- 

 panied the queen to constitute a new swarm. Hives that 

 are well stocked with bees in the spring, sv/arm much earlier 

 than feeble ones, and are able to use the best of the season 

 to great advantage. 



In speaking of the advantages of a large colony, we would 

 not be understood to approve of the plan of those persons 

 who so far depart from the economy of nature as to raise 

 bees in a chamber, or in any way where their colonies will 

 much exceed fifteen or sixteen quarts of bees. 



As there are several millions of dollars' worth of the purest 

 sweet lost in the United States every year for want of bees 

 to save it, and skill to manage the bees, it is to be regretted 

 that so many of our fellow-citizens engaged in their culture 

 should keep them in non-swarming colonies. If the whole 

 mass of bee-cultivators should adopt this system, it would 

 be but a few years before we should be compelled to adopt 

 the practice of the survivors of Hippocrates,' by collecting 

 bees from the crevices of rocks and hollow trees, to bring 

 them again into a state of cultivation. •• " 



Bees are creatures of habit, and the exercise of caution in 



