392 A Modem Bee-Farm 



every vacant cell being more or less occupied with the thin 

 newly-gathered nectar. The bees, too, come in with dis- 

 tended bodies, falling heavily upon the flight board. 

 Sometimes the aroma of the incoming stores is distinctly 

 noticeable, more particularly at evening when many bees 

 are ventilating at the entrance, and a perfect roar is heard 

 throughout the apiary. Apart from this, the advanced 

 apiarist has an instinctive feeling that honey is, or is not, 

 being gathered. The state oi the atmosphere and his 

 knowledge of surrounding crops tell him at once what to 

 expect. The temperature may range anywhere from 70° 

 to 90^ in the shade, but if it continue too hot and dry for 

 more than ten or fourteen days, the amount of honey 

 brought in will decrease daily, unless there happen to be a 

 succession of heavy ground crops coming along, when, 

 the earth being shaded, moisture is still retained. A 

 shower once in a while is beneficial, but frequent rainfalls 

 destroy all chance of a good honey flow, as such induce 

 also a low temperature. Even with fair weather it some- 

 times happens that the temperature rules too low for the 

 secretion of nectar ; but usually if none is stored during 

 a fine season, it implies either that the district is poor in 

 honey plants, or else that there are too many colonies in 

 one place. 



The Importance of Young Queens reared expressly 

 for the heather and other late honey harvests ; also the 

 rearing of them in late Autumn for uniting nuclei with 

 stocks before winter vitally important methods were first 

 set out in my pamphlet of 1886, and caused considerable 

 comment at the time[; but it is satisfactory to find that 

 many bee-keepers are waking up to see the advantages of 

 this plan, though in far too many instances its undoubted 

 benefits are not yet realized. 



