426 APIARY AT COBHAM. 



same principle that a field may be overstocked with cattle, 

 and therefore that in every species of stock, the number 

 ought to be restricted to the means of subsistence. We 

 certainly have no reason to fear that any part of this country 

 will be overstocked with bees, for we scruple not to affirm, 

 that where one hive is now kept, fifty might be kept without 

 running any risk of overstocking the country. The average 

 number of hives in the apiaries of this country do not exceed 

 five, and we know of only one apiary which ever reached the 

 number of sixty, and that was at Cobham, in Kent. The pro- 

 prietor however was a perfect charlatan in bee-keeping; the 

 aspect of his hives was not of the slightest consideration 

 to him, for they faced all the points of the compass ; and to 

 attempt to instil any instruction into him relative to the im- 

 proved method of keeping bees, was similar to driving a gim- 

 let into a block of marble. We were introduced to this most 

 eccentric of all bee-masters by the late Mr. Stevenson, the 

 steward of the Earl of Darnley, and on beginning to ex- 

 patiate with him on several instances of his bad management 

 in his apiary, he very coolly insisted that Mr. Stevenson and 

 myself should leave his premises, for, according to his own 

 opinion, he was the only man in England who really un- 

 derstood the management of bees. Nothing could give 

 him greater offence than to ask him to sell a hive, for he 

 had formed a resolution to die with an apiary of one 

 hundred hives. At his death, however, his apiary amounted 

 to only forty hives ; and may not this be adduced as a 

 proof that he had over-stocked the particular district in 

 which he lived ? 



There are very few districts which will support an apiary 

 of sixty hives in one position. Twenty-five hives are the 

 utmost which we would recommend any bee-master to keep 

 in one apiary, with a view to actual profit ; and even that 

 number is too great, if the country be not of the first-rate 



