UTOPIA. 31 



the work alone, but must establish apiaries in different 

 places, and trust the work to competent assistants, 

 being general superintendent myself. Shutting my 

 eyes to the above glittering array of figures, I started 

 out again on a more moderate basis. I had now in 

 the cellar at home, the seventeen strong swarms in 

 box hives. I could easily buy from some keeper of 

 bees, in the southern part of the county, for not 

 more than five dollars each, thirteen swarms more, 

 so as to begin the season with thirty swarms. These 

 I would transfer to movable-frame hives, and run 

 them for extracted honey. Again my facile pencil 

 sought the paper. Taking a most moderate view of 

 the increase, it seemed that I could keep my old 

 hives very strong in bees, and make one and a half 

 new swarms from each old one, so as to have at the 

 close of the season two and one-half good swarms 

 for each old one with which I began. I had always 

 heard father say that ours was a good location for 

 bees, and the result of last year seemed to prove it. 

 From the statements in the journals, and from the 

 experience with our ten swarms of the past year, it 

 did not seem irrational to expect, in a good location 

 and with good management, five dollars worth of 

 honey from each old hive per year ; and from the 

 new swarms enough to pay for hives and frames. 

 Omitting fractions the yearly results for five years 

 would stand thus : 



