124 THE BEE-MASTER OF WARRILOW 
bee-master sets the clock of the year forward by 
many weeks. He imitates nature by arranging his 
feeding-stages so that the supply of syrup can be 
limited to the actual day-to-day wants of the colony, 
allowing the bees freer access to the syrup-bottles 
from time to time as their numbers augment. 
If this is adroitly done, the effect on the colony is 
remarkable. The little company of bees whose part 
it is to direct the actions of the queen-mother, seeing 
what is apparently the natural fresh supply of food 
coming in, in daily increasing quantities, at length 
cast their hereditary reserve aside, and allow the 
queen fullest scope for egg-laying. The result is 
that by the time the real honey-flow commences the 
population of each hive is double what it would be if 
it had been left to its own resources, and the honey- 
yield is more than proportionately great. It is well 
know among bee-men that a hive containing, say, 
forty thousand workers will produce very much 
more honey than two hives together numbering 
twenty thousand each. 
There is another vital consideration in this work 
of early stimulation of the hives, which the capable 
bee-master will never neglect. When the natural 
honey-glut is on, the whole hive reeks with the 
odours given off from the evaporating nectar. The 
raw material, as gathered from the flowers, must be 
reduced by the heat of the hive and other agencies 
to about one-quarter of its original bulk before it 
is changed into mature honey. The artificial food 
given to the bees will, of course, have none of this 
scent, and the old honey-stores in the hive are 
hermetically sealed under their waxen cappings. To 
complete the deception which has been so elaborately 
