250 ARTIFICIAL SWAEMING. 



is dark, and as they cannot see where to fly, they will alight 

 on the person of the bee-keeper, who is almost sure to be 

 stuug. It is seldom that night work is attempted upon 

 bees, without making the operator repent his folly. 



487. We would strongly dissuade any but the most ex- 

 perienced Apiarists, from attempting, at the furthest, to do 

 more than double their colonies in one year. It would take 

 another book to furnish directions for rapid multiplica- 

 tion, sufficiently full and explicit for the inexperienced ; 

 and even then, most who should undertake it, would be 

 sure, at first, to fail. With ten strong colonies of bees, in 

 movable-comb hives, in one propitious season, we could so 

 increase them, in a favorable location, as to have, on the 

 approach of Winter, one hundred good colonies ; but we 

 should expect to purchase queens, foundation, and perhaps 

 hundreds of pounds of honey, devoting much of our time 

 to their management, and bringing to the work the experi- 

 ence of many years, and the judgment acquired by numer- 

 ous lamentable failures. 



In one season, being called from home after our colonies 

 had been greatly multiplied, the honey harvest was sud- 

 denly 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 food required in our uncertain 

 climate for the rapid increase of colonies, are 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 certain rather than a rcyn'd multiplication of colonies, is 

 most needed. A single colony, doubling every year, would, 

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



* Many a person who roads this will probably imagine that he is the one in a 

 hundred. 



