160 FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



need for more room should arise. The next time there is need 

 to give a super below, this top super is moved down and an- 

 other empty super put in its place. When the top super is 

 put down, I think the bees start work on it just a bit sooner 

 than if it had not been above. 



SWARMING NOT DESIRABLE. 



If I were to meet a man perfect in the entire science and 

 art of beekeeping, and were allowed from him an answer to 

 just one question, I would ask for the best and easiest way to 

 prevent swarming, for one who is anxious to secure the largest 

 crop of comb honey. There are localities where a large crop 

 of honey is secured in the fall, and in such places, or in any 

 other place where the honey flow is long enough, a larger crop 

 may be secured by increase, but I am not so sure about that. 

 If a man in such a place start in the spring with 75 colonies, 

 he may get a larger crop by increasing early enough to 150, 

 supposing ] 50 colonies to be the largest number his field will 

 bear; but would he not have a still larger crop if he had 150 

 all through the season and made no increase? However that 

 may be, in my locality, which beekeepers generally would con- 

 sider a poor one, where white clover is the chief if not the only 

 source from which a crop may be expected, and where the har- 

 vest is all too short, if, indeed, it comes at all — in such a place 

 I am satisfied that more honey can be harvested by commenc- 

 ing in the spring with the largest number the field will bear and 

 holding at that number, always provided that the means taken 

 to keep down increase shall in no wise interfere with the best 

 work on the part of the bees. 



If I were working for extracted honey, I suppose the mat- 

 ter might be managed, to a great extent, if not to the fullest 

 extent, by simply giving abundance of room in every direction ; 

 but with comb honey, I do not believe that an abundance of 

 room in the brood-nest is compatible with the largest yield of 

 surplus. 



Or, if I were working for extracted honey, I might at the 

 .beginning of the harvest put all the brood over an excluder in 

 an upper story, leaving the queen on empty frames below, but 

 that would hardly work for comb-honey production. 



