496 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
brood, in a second storey over another colony. , The 
swarm formed may be advantageously utilised by being 
run for comb honey over a contracted brood-nest, as 
hereafter explained. With the doubled stock, the 
progeny of the two queens will give, in a week or so, 
an immense gathering population, filling the cells of the 
upper storey as vacated. The process should antedate 
by some days, at least, an expected honey flow, 
at the beginning of which a third storey should be 
added. In good honey districts, in a favourable 
season, a fourth tier will be required, especially if the 
top one remain on for complete sealing, so that it 
may be removed bodily instead of each comb as ready. 
Doubling, with every form of condensing that will 
secure gigantic stocks, has its advantages — e.g., 
60,000 bees will give more than double the result in 
surplus of 30,000, because temperature with a large 
number is regulated and sustained with less individual 
effort than with a smaller, and also because the 60,000 
have but one queen instead of two, by which the 
demand upon their energies in brood-tending is rela- 
tively reduced. A loss, however, accompanies the 
gain — the larger hive and denser throng impede move- 
ment and delay work; and careful experiments seem 
to indicate that after I2lb. of bees have been heaped 
together, the loss is greater than the advantage. The 
defect of doubling lies in the presence of brood in 
the upper storey occasioning delay, as already pointed 
out — a serious disadvantage with our short season, but 
relatively unimportant in America, where the practice 
is very usually followed. 
In dealing with those stocks which, from any cause 
