252 
Beekeeping 
control. He cannot govern the weather or produce honey- 
plants with profit. There are on the other hand two other 
factors with which his work must deal. His efforts should 
be for the purpose (1) of getting plenty of bees of the right 
age in time for the harvest and (2) of keeping these bees in 
proper condition for gathering the maximum crop. The 
first essential is far-reaching and obviously includes the 
entire care of the colonies to prevent starvation or loss from 
other causes. It applies especially to the work in the 
spring. The second essential applies chiefly to the control 
of swarming. It is well for the beekeeper to keep these two 
essentials always before him and to ask himself, when he 
plans any work with the bees, whether it comes under one 
of these heads. 
^The beekeeper may profitably go one step further in the 
analysis. For example, stimulative feeding in the spring 
is mentioned earlier in this chapter. He should first of all 
determine whether stimulative feeding is more profitable 
than the giving of abundant stores. If he finds that he gets 
more bees by stimulative feeding, he should then determine 
whether he gets enough more to justify the expenditure of 
time and money, or whether he can get a larger total crop 
by keeping a few more colonies, combined with the giving 
of abundant stores. An example taken from life may not 
be amiss, the names being here omitted. Two beekeepers 
are located in exceptional situations which may be assumed 
to be equally good. One of these men is skilled in the 
improvement of his stock and has made significant progress, 
but the work occupies considerable time. The other bee¬ 
keeper feels that he has not the time for this (and he may 
not have the skill), but he keeps 100 colonies more than his 
co-worker. In the case just given the beekeeper with the 
larger number of colonies makes more money, but this illus¬ 
tration is by no means given to discourage breeding work. 
It shows, however, that for that particular region the greater 
profits come with extensive beekeeping, while in other regions 
more intensive work might yield better financial returns. 
