208 ARTIFICIAL SWAKMIN6. 



honey. From the first swarm I must take combs containing 

 muturing brood, to strengthen my weak swarms, and this 

 first swarm, however powerful or early, instead of being 

 able to store its combs with honey, will be constantly tasked 

 in building new combs to replace those taken away, so that 

 when the hQney harvest closes, it will have scarcely any 

 honey, and must be fed to prevent it from starving. Any 

 man who has sense enough to be entrusted with bees, can, 

 from these remarks, understand exactly why it is impossible 

 to multiply colonies rapidly in any ordinary season, and yet 

 obtain from them large supplies of honey. Even the 

 doubling of stocks in one season, will very often be too 

 rapid an increase, if the greatest quantity of spare honey is 

 to be obtained from them ; and when this is desired, I much 

 prefer to form, in a way soon to be described, only one new 

 stock from two old ones ; this will give even more honey 

 from the three, than could have been obtained from the two, 

 on the ordinary non-swarming plan. 



I would very strongly dissuade any but experienced 

 Apiarians, from attempting, at the furthest, to do more than 

 treble their stocks in one year. In order to furnish directions 

 for very rapid multiplication, sufficiently full and explicit for 

 the inexperienced, I should have to write a book on this one 

 topic ; and even then, the most of those who should under- 

 take it, would be sure at first to fail. 



I have no doubt that with ten strong stocks of bees in a 

 good location, in movable-comb hives, in one favorable 

 season, I could so increase them as to have, on the approach 

 of Winter, one hundred good colonies : but I should expect 

 to feed hundreds of pounds of honey, to devote nearly all 

 my time to their management, and to bring to the work, the 

 experience of many years, and the judgment acquired by 

 numerous failures. After all, what we most need, in order 



