214 AKTIFICIAL SWAKMING. 



certain that this cannot be done by any but those who have 

 considerable experience in the management of bees. 



As some Apiarians may be so situated as to wish to increase 

 their bees quite rapidly, I shall give such methods as from 

 numerous experiments, many of them conducted on a large 

 -scale, I have found to be the best. I wish it however 

 to be most distinctly understood, that I do not consider very 

 rapid multiplication as likely to succeed, except in the hands 

 of a skillful Apiarian. Its chief merit consists in the short 

 time which it requires to build up a large Apiary, and 

 under ordinary circumstances it requires too much time, care 

 and honey, to be of very great practical value. If the care- 

 ful attention of the bee-keeper is at any critical time relaxed, 

 by a flagging of the zeal with which he commenced, or 

 sickness, or other necessary hindrances, he will find at the 

 close of the season, or by the return of Spring, that his gains 

 consist only of experience, purchased at a very extravagant 

 price. After trying my mode of management for a few 

 seasons, a bee-keeper may find that he is favorably situated 

 for taking care of a large stock of bees. Suppose him to 

 have acquired both skill and confidence, and that he has ten 

 powerful colonies. If he is willing to do without surplus 

 honey for one season, and the honey-harvest should be very, 

 productive, he may, without feeding, or very much labor, 

 safely increase his ten colonies to thirty. If he chooses to 

 feed largely, he may possibly end the season with fifty or 

 sixty, or even more ; but he will prohably end it in such a 

 manner as most thoroughly to disgust him with his folly, and 

 to teach him that in bee-keeping, as well as in other things, 

 "Haste makes waste." 



On the supposition that by the time the fruit-trees are in 

 blossom, the Apiarian has, in movable-comb hives, ten pow- 



