THE PRODUCTION OF HONEY. 
497 
save that of disease, have failed in rising to profit- 
able proportions, some form of condensation is of 
the very highest importance, and the novice must 
not think that a strange thing has happened to him 
if all his stocks are not first class ; for it is the 
common experience of even the greatest adepts, who 
sometimes, in describing their remarkable doings with 
a few colonies, mislead by failing to note how little 
they have done with others. Two poor ones (see 
pages 432, 437) have two or three weeks of progress 
put into them by union, and so possibly save the 
harvest. A fair one, being filled up with brood from 
a second like to itself, which henceforward is a nucleus 
for queen-raising, becomes so quickly strong that it 
enters the lists as a honey stock. It by no means 
follows that frames of brood given should remain ; 
and, indeed, in working for comb honey,’ it is often 
most desirable to add such, and, after the bees are 
hatched, remove them, as the less room the colony 
has outside its sections, short of driving it to swarm- 
ing, the better. 
Storifying with standard frames is not so absolutely 
manageable as with those that are shallower. Even 
the preparatory operation of spreading the brood, when 
the nest extends to two boxes, is more quickly done 
by horizontal than perpendicular division. The nest is 
very rarely centrally placed, and then a half-rotation of 
one of the boxes spreads without risk. Interchanging 
(page 94) cuts the theoretically globular collection of 
brood horizontally, and the circumference is brought to 
the centre, while the widest part of the nest takes the 
top and bottom. Honey is now inevitably removed 
VoL. II. 2 K 
