256 ARTIFICIAL SWAR3IING. 



to fail. With ten strong colonies of bees, in movable-comb 

 hives, in one pj'opitioiis season, v.-e could so nicrease them, 

 in a favorable location, as to ha^'e, on the approach of \V niter, 

 one hundred good colonies; but we should expect to purchase 

 queens, foundation, and perhaps hundreds of pounds of 

 honej', devoting much of our time to their management, and 

 bringing to the Avork rhe experience of many years, and tiie 

 judgment acquired by niimerous lamentable failures. 



In one season, being called from home after our colonies 

 had been greatly multiplied, the honey harvest was suddenly 

 cut short by a drought, and we found, on our return, that 

 most of our stocks were ruined by starvation. 



The time, care, skill, and f(«jd required in our uncertain 

 climate for the rapid increase of colonies, arc so great, that 

 not one bee-keeper in a hundred* can make it profitable; 

 while most who attempt it, will be almost sure, at the close 

 of the season, to find themselves in possession of colonies 

 which have been managed to death. 



A ceitain rather than a rapid multiplication of colonies, is 

 most needed. A single cob my, doubling even' year, would, 

 in ten years, increase to 1,024 colonies, and in twenty years 

 to over a million ! f At this rate, our whole country might, in 



* Many a person who reads this will probably imagine that he is the 

 one in a hundred. 



t The following calculation of possible profits from bee-culture, taken 

 from "Sydserff's Treatise on Bees," published in England, in 1792, is a. 

 perfect gem of its kind : 



"Suppose a swarm of bees at the first to cost 10s. 6d., and neither 

 them nor the swarms to be taken, but to do well, and swarm once every 

 year" — bees must be naughty, indeed, if thoy dare to do otherwise! — 

 "what will be the product for fourteen years, and what the profit, it 

 each hive is sold at 10s. 6d. ? 



Years. Hives. 



1 1 



2 2 



3 4 



4 8 



14 S192 43r.O 10 



"N. B,— Deduct lOh. Gel., what the fir;-t hive cost, and the rrmainder 



