12 A Modern Bee-Farm 



transaction will take place at any other time, and can 

 certainly give no advice for obtaining them at another 

 date, where the highest possible returns are desired from 

 the first season's work. If you begin earlier or later, 

 earlier in particular, the first great mistake is made, and 

 very likely one which will be the cause of ultimate failure. 



I have known apiaries purchased during mid-winter, 

 and sent many miles by rail, to be simply wiped out 

 before the summer arrived ; the seller thereafter being 

 sued for damages, and made to refund a large proportion 

 of the value, because the purchaser could shew that some 

 of the stocks were slightly diseased, and considered that 

 was the trouble ; whereas the fault was mostly his own 

 for making the purchase and moving them at that un- 

 seasonable time, and thus making it impossible for the 

 bees to regain their normal hibernating condition. 



Other stocks moved in February or March, have 

 dwindled terribly after a long railway journey, simply 

 because the bees that had wintered were unfit to bear 

 ■confinement, and thereafter, through the too-early excite- 

 ment soon wore themselves out, without first being able 

 to renew the population of the hives. 



Bees moved in April or Hay 



undergo just that condition of excitement which induces 

 healthy activity at exactly the right time ; the queens 

 become equally energetic under the consequent stimula- 

 tion ; and better progress is made than if they had not 

 been disturbed. If moved in February or March the 

 same excitement causes the loss of thousands of the older 

 bees, through flying for what they cannot obtain at that 

 early date ; the large patches of brood lose the warmth 

 hitherto afforded by such workers, and the hive deteriorates 

 to such an extent that the whole season is unprofitable. 



