HEREDITY IN THE BEE-GARDEN 53 
Swarming was encouraged in every possible way. 
And so, at last, the steady, stay-at-home variety of 
honey-bee became exterminated, and only the 
inveterate swarmers were kept to carry on the 
strain.” 
I quoted the time-honoured maxim about a 
swarm in May being worth a load of hay. The 
bee-master laughed derisively. 
“To the modern bee-keeper,’? he said, ‘‘a 
swarm in May is little short of a disgrace. There 
is no clearer sign of bad beemanship nowadays than 
when a strong colony is allowed to weaken itself 
by swarming on the eve of the great honey-flow, 
just when strength and numbers are most needed. 
Of course, in the old days, the maxim held true 
enough. The straw skeps had room only for a 
certain number of bees, and when they became too 
crowded there was nothing for it but to let the 
colonies split up in the natural way. But the 
modern frame-hive, with its extending brood- 
chamber, does away with that necessity. Instead 
of the old beggarly ten or twelve thousand, we can 
now raise a population of forty or fifty thousand 
bees in each hive, and so treble and quadruple the 
honey-harvest.”’ 
‘But,’ I asked him, ‘‘ do not the bees go on 
swarming all the same, if you let them? ”’ 
““The old instincts die hard,” he said. ‘‘ Some 
day they will learn more scientific ways; but as 
yet they have not realised the change that modern 
bee-keeping has made in their condition. Of 
course, swarming has its clear, definite purpose, 
apart from that of relieving the congestion of the 
stock. When a hive swarms, the old queen goes 
