236 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



kept by a family, there is little danger of getting 

 too many in any district. Those who design estab- 

 lishing large apiaries would do well to seek locations 

 where they would have a wide range, and not keep 

 more than one hundred colonies in any one place, 

 nor less than three miles between such apiaries. 



It may seem presumptuous in me to assume a 

 position so different on this question to that arroga- 

 ted by Rev. Mr. Langstroth in his work, but upon 

 examining it carefully, I have failed to find a single 

 word of his own experience related in this matter. 

 His whole argument to show that this country cannot 

 be overstocked with bees, is founded on statements 

 made by certain German authors, of the vast quanti- 

 ties kept in Germany, giving the number in each 

 apiary at from two hundred up as high as five thou- 

 sand colonies, and those but a short distance apart; 

 and in some parts of Holland as many as two thou- 

 sand colonies are kept to the square mile. 



Had Mr. Langstroth given us a reliable statement 

 of the resources of those districts for producing 

 honey, the kinds of flowers that abound there; if 

 there is a uniform succession of flowers sufficient to 

 supply all the wants of the bees from early spring 

 until late in the fall, it would have greatly aided 

 American bee-keepers in arriving at the truth in 

 this matter, and tended to correct error, if such 

 exists. However true those statements may be as 

 regards Germany, I think they cannot with propriety 

 be applied to any part of the United States, at least 

 any portion I have seen, and I have visited many of 



