FORTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES. 



135 



cluder-swarm-prevention plan did not turn out to be a 

 howling success. 



Fig. 43. — Crock-and-plate Feeder. 



EXPERIMENTING ON TOO LARGE SCALE. 



Allow me to digress long enough to confess that one 

 of my weaknesses is being a little too sanguine about new 

 plans while they are yet in the raw, and so experimenting 

 on too large a scale. More than one crop of honey has 

 been lessened by means of some foolish project that I 

 thought might increase the crop. But I haven't done as 

 badly as I might have done, for my good wife has acted 

 somewhat as a balance-wheel, advising me to "go slow" 

 and not experiment on too large a scale, and she has al- 

 ways been abetted by her sister, who is perhaps over-con- 

 servative. I could have tested my plan with 1 5 excluders 

 just as well as with ten times that number, but I knew 

 the plan would work, and I couldn't wait! I think I 



