SELECTING COLONIES FOE WINTBK. 275 



One cause of superior thrift may be found in the circum- 

 stance that all moth eggs and worms are frozen to death, 

 and the bees are not troubled with any worms before 

 June. No young bees have to be removed to work them 

 out, hence nearly every young bee that is fed and sealed 

 up, comes forth perfect, which makes a vast difference in 

 the increase. Any person wishing to increase the number 

 of his colonies to the utmost, will find this plan of saving 

 all partly filled hives, much more profitable than to break 

 out the honey for sale. Suppose you have an old stock 

 that needs pruning, and you have neglected it, or it has 

 refused to swarm, and you have had no opportunity to do 

 it, without destroying too much brood. You can let it be, 

 and put on the boxes — ^perhaps get twenty-five pounds of 

 cap honey — and then winter the bees in it as described, 

 and transfer them to the new combs in the spring. 



Again, if there are no old or diseased stocks to be trans- 

 ferred in the spring, keep them until the swarming season. 

 H a swarm put into an empty hive would just fill it, the 

 same swarm put into one containing fifteen pounds of 

 honey, would evidently make that quantity of surplus. 

 The advantage is in the comparative value of box and hive 

 honey ; the former being worth from thirty to a hundred 

 per cent. more. 



UNITING COMB, HONEY, AND BEES. 



I have occasionally adopted another method of making 

 a good stock from two poor ones, which the reader may 

 prefer. When all the old stocks have been reinforced that 

 need it, and there are still some swarms with too few bees 

 and too little honey to winter safely in their present con- 

 dition, two or more can be united. The fact, which has 

 been sufficiently tested, that two families of bees, when 

 united and wintered in one hive, will consume but little, 

 if any more, than each would separately, has an import- 



