CONSTRUCTIVE BEEKEEPING 17 



ahead, and only the colonies that are fitest survive ; we have the 

 energy of the colony directed as a unit to gathering stores. 

 The brood-rearing at this period is a secondary consideration, and 

 about keeps pace with the bees that fall from the ranks. 



The next period has brood-rearing and general preparation 

 for the winter on its schedule. This brood-rearing does not take 

 on the riotous nature of the spring period. 



There is no definite line or date dividing these periods. They 

 dovetail into one another and only by close observance and much 

 bee-wisdom is a person able to detect the change of colony 

 procedure as the bees pass from the spring to the summer period. 

 Because of the inability of the ordinary beekeeper to sense this, 

 he has not been uniformly successful in the production of comb 

 honey. 



In passing from one period to the other the colony work 

 fades from rearing brood to gathering honey, then back again to 

 rearing brood. This change depends as much or more on strength 

 and good condition of the colony as on weather and field con- 

 ditions. The beekeeper, not being able to tell the exact time that 

 each particular colony is prepared to take on the work of the next 

 period, assumes that they take on the urge in the summer period 

 when contraction of the brood takes place. 



The rearing of queens by the colony cannot be considered 

 an acquired habit. We have to admit that it is both for the 

 teproduction of the colony and the species, and goes back to the 

 very origin of life. 



The strongest disire or urge in all life is to reproduce its 

 kind. If this disire is destroyed in a species that species becomes 

 extinct. It is an impossibility to breed a swarmless bee. If it 

 could be done all ambition, vim and energy would disappear, and 

 as much could be accomplished with so many inanimate units.' 

 The main thing in life is reproduction. All other things are done 

 for the better bringing it about. Increase and multiply is the 

 urge of all things living, so that each generation is greater in 

 numbers and wisdom than the preceding. 



As generation after generation succeeds one another, the 



