FALL MANAGEMENT. 
321 
We will suppose that each family, from the first of 
October till April, consumed twenty pounds of honey. 
That in the centre combs, where there is most bee- 
bread, &c., is eaten first ; if any is left, it is at the top 
and outside. If I had attempted to take out and 
strain this twenty pounds in the fall, it would have 
been so mixed with dead brood, and bee-bread, that I 
probably should have rejected most of it. The re- 
mainder, when strained, might have been five pounds, 
not more. The market price for it is about ten cents 
per pound ; amount fifty cents. We will say the new 
hive kept through the winter to receive the bees in 
the spring contained fifteen pounds ; this would also 
have averaged about ten cents per pound, amount- 
ing to $1.50. All that a stock of this kind costs 
me appears to be just $2.00, and worth at least 
$5.00. The advantage in changing twenty would be 
$60.00. The labor of transferring will offset against 
the trouble of straining, preparing, and the expense 
of getting the honey to market. 
ANOTHER METHOD OP UNITING TWO FAMILIES. 
I have occasionally adopted yet another method of 
making a good stock from two poor ones, which the 
reader may prefer. When all your old stocks have 
been reinforced that need it, and you still have some 
swarms with too few bees and too little honey for safety 
as they are, two or more can be united. The fact, which 
has been thoroughly tested, that two families of bees, 
when united and wintered in one hive, will consume 
but little, if any more, than each of them would sepa- 
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