THOUSAND ANSWERS 
161 
A. I have been trying for SO years, right in the same location, 
to learn how many colonies could be kept without overstocking, 
and I don’t know yet. One great trouble is that no two years are 
alike as to yield. In a poor year there may not be nectar enough 
for 25 colonies, while in the very same spot a good year may give 
abundance for 100 colonies. And you never can be entirely sure 
in advance whether the year will be good or bad. If the 22 cases 
made by your 45 colonies were 22 cases of 24 sections each, that 
would be about 12 sections per colony. If that was all the sur- 
plus that could be stored by decently good bees, it is doubtful 
that a larger number would have given so very much more. For 
you arc right in counting .the honey gathered by the bees for 
their own use, and it is generally a good deal more than the 
amount they put in the supers. Suppose it takes 200 pounds per 
colony for their own use, and that each colony yields a surplus 
of 100 pounds. Each colony would then gather 300 pounds, which 
would be 13,500 pounds for 45 colonies. Now suppose the field 
yields 15,000 pounds. There would be 1,500 pounds that would go 
to waste, and you might just as well have five colonies more to 
gather it all. But suppose you plant 150 colonies. They would 
need 30,000 pounds for their own use. But the field yields only 
15,000, and so you would get no surplus and would have to feed 
15,000 pounds. Some locations are much better than others. In 
some parts of Iowa beekeepers harvest big crops with 300 colonies 
in a single apiary. 
Over-stocking. — Q. I have only had my bees about three years 
The man I bought them from said he was selling off his bees and 
was going to Old Mexico, as that was a great bee country. So 1 
bought about one-half of his bees, and he went away and was 
gone about two years. Then he came back and began to keep 
bees again. I have four apiaries now. One was doing fairly well, 
but he has just put a big apiary about one-half mile from mine. 
We figure on 50 pounds per colony here. Now, what would you 
eastern beekeepers think of being treated this way? It does not 
look to me like he or I will get very much honey by having the 
bees so close together. The locations for bees are about all taken 
up here, I think. There are some new locations about 18 miles 
from here. This over-crowding does not look very encouraging 
to me. What do you think of it? (Arizona.) 
A. My thought about it is that this sort of thing makes bee- 
keeping a very uncertain thing to count on. Years ago I took the 
ground that if ever it was to be a reliable business, a man should 
have just the same right to his territory as the man who keeps 
