trNiTiNa STOCKS. 315 



or early in the Spring, are found to be queenless, ought at 

 once to be managed thus, for even if not speedily destroyed 

 by their enemies, ihey are only consumers of the stores 

 which they gathered in their happier days. 



As very small colonies, even though possessed of a healthy 

 queen, are never able to winter as advantageously as large 

 ones, the bees from several such colonies ought to be put 

 together, to enable them, by keeping up the necessary animal 

 heat, to survive the Winter with less food. A certain 

 quantity of heat must be maintained by bees, in order to live 

 at all, and if their numbers are too small, they can only 

 keep it up, by eating more than they otherwise would. A 

 small swarm will thus, not unfrequently, consume as much 

 honey as one containing tvi'o or three times as many bees. 

 These are facts, which have been most thoroughly tested on 

 a very large scale. On the same principle, if a hundred 

 persons are to occupy, with comfort, a church capable of 

 accommodating a thousand, more fuel will be required to 

 warm the small number, than the large one. ' 



In uniting colonies, however, special care should be taken 

 not to make the united stock over-populous. A large num- 

 ber of bees is desirable, but a colony containing excessive 

 numbers, is apt to become restless, and so voracious as to 

 be liable to dysentery. In such hives, many bees are clus- 

 tered so far from the stores, that honey cannot be regularly, 

 if at all, dispensed to them ; and as the internal heat of the 

 colony keeps them active, they become impatient for food, 

 separate from the cluster, and are fatally chilled. Their 

 restlessness leads to general confusion, and an inordinate 

 consumption of honey by those which have access to the 

 store-combs ; and this soon brings on the dysentery. There- 

 fore, in this matter, as well as in the formation of swarms, the 



