256 AETIPICIAL SWARMING. 



to fail. With ten strong colonies of bees, in movable-comb 

 hives, in one propitious season, we could so increase them, 

 in a favorable location, as to have, on the approach of Winter, 

 one hundred good colonies; but we should expect to purchase 

 queens, foundation, and perhaps hundreds of pounds of 

 hoiiej', devoting much of our time to their management, and 

 bringing to the work the experience of many years, and the 

 judgment acquired by numerous lamentable failures. 



In one season, being called from home after our colonies 

 Lad been greatly multiplied, the honey harvest was suddenly 

 cut short by a drought, and we found, on our return, that 

 most of our stocks were ruined by starvation. 



The time, care, skill, and food required in our uncertain 

 climate for the rapid increase of colonies, arc so gi'eat, that 

 not one bee-keeper in a hundred* can make it profitable; 

 while most who attempt it, will be almost sure, at the close 

 of the season, to find themselves in possession of colonies 

 which have been managed to death. 



A ceitain rather than a rapid multiplication of colonies, is 

 most needed. A single colony, doubling every year, would, 

 in ten years, increase to 1,024 colonies, and in twenty years 

 to over a million ! f At this rate, our whole country might, in 



* Many a person who reads this will probably imagine that he is the 

 one in a hundred. 



■t The following calculation of possible profits from bee-culture, taken 

 from "Sydsertt's Treatise on Bees," published in England, in 1792, is a 

 perfect gem of its kind : 



"Suppose a swarm of bees at the first to cost IDs. 6d., and neither 

 them nor the swarms to be taken, but to do well, and swarm once every 

 year" — bees must be naughty, indeed, if they dare to do otherwise ! — 

 "what will be the product tor fourteen years, and what the profit, it 

 each hive is sold at 10s. 6d. ? 



Years. Hives. Profits. 



£ s. d. 



1 1 



2 2 1 1 



3 4 2 2 



4 8 4 4 



14 8192 4300 16 



"N. B. — Deduct 10s. 6d., what the first hive cost, and the remainder 



