CONTROLLED INCREASE. 
227 
40,000 eggs, which could have been nurtured into 
adult bees at an expense of bee life far less than 
the difference between the number in the swarm 
and the number of eggs laid. 
From all this it is clear that any decrease man can, 
by management, make in the seventeen days afore- 
said, will be to the great advantage of his stocks ; and 
we shall presently see that it can be easily reduced 
one-half, while very workable plans practically anni- 
hilate the interregnum altogether. Again, in natural 
swarming many queen-cells are built (page 125), the 
contained larvae of which are all lavishly nurtured at 
great cost in time and energy, yet usually one only 
of the resulting queens reaches the stage in which 
she pays for her bringing-up ; the rest are ruthlessly 
slaughtered and cast forth — a loss pure and simple to 
the community which at first laboured for, and then 
destroyed, them. In a well-managed apiary, however, 
in which artificial swarming is followed, this leak of 
wealth is well-nigh stopped, and the queens which 
are supernumerary, and so, under natural conditions, 
necessarily devoted to destruction, are, in the greater 
number of instances, transferred to other colonies, which 
are thus saved the cost borne by their neighbours. 
But. I would lay the deepest stress upon a point yet to 
be considered. Attentive observation will show that, 
amidst a well-marked uniformity in anatomical structure, 
instincts, and capability, there is a range of variation in 
the bee which is by no means narrow. In half-a-dozen 
stocks of the same race, which start the season in 
similar hives, with equal quantities of comb, with like 
population, the same forage-ground, and identical 
Q 2 
