October 14, 1886. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
351 
MODIFIED INCREASE. 
In a previous article I have pointed out what has appeared 
to me to be the surest method of obtaining super honey in 
the most suitable form; but as it is quite possible that some 
may regard the absolute prevention of swarming as not al¬ 
together desirable, either because they desire an increase in 
the number of their stocks or because they fear their ability 
through press of work to give proper attention to the wants 
of the apiary at the time when the greatest care is required, 
it may be useful to give an alternative plan, or rather a modi¬ 
fication of the non-swarming system, which, if not giving such 
sure and great results as the non-swarming one, must at least 
take the next place in order of merit, and as such was recognised 
by the late Alexander Pettigrew even in preference to the pre¬ 
vention-of-s warming system of management to which he was 
always opposed. To those who require a moderate increase 
it offers great facilities for getting swarms early in the sea¬ 
son, and a fair amount of super honey, the mo '3 especially 
if there is Heather in the vicinity, when it quite possibly 
may be a superior system to the one absolutely suppressing 
swarms. As in every other method so in this, strong stocks 
early in the season are an absolute necessity, and if these 
cannot be had failure will result. A strong stock ought to be 
ready in the first week in May to take a super, and a 
small one may be given, and when this is completed it may 
be removed and an artificial swarm taken from the stock, all 
casts or after swarms being prevented, and the stock itself 
eupered, and the swarm also as soon as it has filled or nearly 
so its hive with comb. This was Mr. Pettigrew’s plan if I 
remember it rightly, and the one I prefer to follow is very 
slightly different; for instead of placing a super as soon as 
the stock is ready, I would take an artificial swarm when 
the stock was strong enough to yield one, thus sacrificing the 
first small super, or the possibility of one, for the sake of 
getting the stock and swarm strong enough to take advan¬ 
tage of all the honey flow which occurs in the early 
days of June from the Sycamore and Clover. If June and 
July are fine two lots of bees, the old stock and swarm, both 
working in supers, will gather a great weight of honey, in 
some seasons in excess of the amount that can be taken from a 
a stock not allowed to swarm at all; but if part of those months 
are wet the latter will have the advantage, and as years are 
very rare when the whole season is fine, therefore the plan 
which makes it almost a certainty to be able to take immedi¬ 
ate advantage of fine honey weather is the one likely to be 
most useful in a climate so uncertain as that of Great Britain. 
Another feature of this moderate increase plan is that in 
the autumn there will be a strong swarm of bees to add to 
each stock which it is intended to keep for another season; 
and if these bees are, as in the prevention-of-increase plan, 
not available, and have to be purchased, a deduction to the 
extent of the cost of the bees added must be made from the 
profit gained from a stock not giving a swarm to obviate the 
necessity for purchasing. Young queens are also hatched 
under the swarming impulse, and are under such conditions 
very valuable indeed, and far preferable to those born and 
bred in a nucleus hive. The pity is that so many valuable 
queens are wasted when hundreds of bee-keepers would be 
thankful to purchase them at a reasonable price, instead of 
being put to the trouble and loss of profit occasioned by 
being compelled either to purchase them from a dealer or 
use the best stock in the apiary for a queen nursery. 
I have endeavoured to state the case fairly, so that bee¬ 
keepers may judge for themselves which plan has the greatest 
advantages when applied to the circumstances of individual 
cases. My preference is for the absolute prevention of 
increase; it suits me best, and year by year gives the largest 
profit. In a bad season seme honey in supers may be had 
when stocks allowed to swarm give none, while in a good 
season a stock prevented from giving increase will give sur¬ 
prising results in super honey. There is only one circum¬ 
stance that might make a change in my management, and 
upon this point I refrain from attempting to advise because 
I have no practical experience, and this is most essential in 
anyone who desires to show others the way to be enabled to 
say that he has himself traversed it and found it safe. This 
circumstance is that as there is no Heather in the neighbour¬ 
hood of my stocks, and I have no time or opportunity to 
transport them to the moors, the honey season is a short 
one, and often ends by the middle of July, and sometimes 
even earlier, though occasionally lasting until the end of the 
month. Thus even early swarms are no sooner, in many 
seasons, at work in supers than the honey flow is ended. Of 
one thing I am convinced by the experience of those who 
have been at the expense and trouble to remove stocks to the 
moors, and that is the absolute necessity of having them very 
strong in numbers. Three seasons out of four the value of 
the honey gained does not pay the expenses of transport, 
the apparent reason being that the stocks are not sufficiently 
strong in numbers to withstand the constant and terrific loss 
of b9e life constantly going on owing to wind and rain and 
other causes. The day may come when bee-keepers will 
recognise that it is better to have one really strong stock 
than half a dozen weak ones. It is unnecessary to add, 
except for guarding against any mistake, that no cast or 
second swarm must be taken from any stock managed upon 
the modified increase system. If such a cast were allowed 
to issue the old stock would very possibly not work at all in 
supers that season, so greatly would it be depopulated by 
thus giving an increase greater than it was well able to 
sustain without detriment; while the cast itself would not, 
unless in exceptional seasons, yield any super honey, and 
this is what we are endeavouring to obtain, and may reason¬ 
ably expect to succeed in obtaining if we give sufficient care 
and exercise a wise judgment in all matters connected with 
our management.— Felix. 
VARIETIES OF BEES AND THEIR MANAGEMENT. 
As promised, I will now give the results of different!hives of bees 
at the Heather and within a quarter of a mile of each other. It will 
be understood that while there is much goodwill and kindly feeling 
amongst bee-keepers, there is also much rivalry as to who will have 
the best and heaviest hives. Some bee-keepers, to achieve that, work 
their hives in a scientific manner, and spare no pains to accomplish 
success. The lines they pursue I have frequently stated in these 
columns, so need not repeat them at the present beyond stating that 
roomy hives, teeming with bees and brood, are essential. Other bee¬ 
keepers, quite as desirous of success as their more successful neigh¬ 
bours, do not use the means to have their hives in proper order, but 
appear rather to place all confidence in first swarms only, believing 
that no management will secure better results than to allow Nature to 
work its way. It is well known that I advocate strong hives 
having young queens at their head, yet only a week or two 
since a number of bee-keepers visiting me were surprised to hear 
me say that having young queens is the key to successful bee-keeping. 
They had always been taught that young queens were, comparatively 
speaking, useless the first year, and they had read in the British 
Bee Journal” that when an increase of honey gathering was 
desired the breeding queen should be removed. But they were still 
more surprised when I gave them ocular demonstration of three 
hives—one a non-swarmed one, the other a stock and first swarm of 
Cyprian blood that since their introduction, nine years ago, had 
received no artificial feeding. The weight of the contents of these 
swarms (minus the wooden hives) was nearly 400 lbs. Had the season 
been a good one I doubt not but they would have weighed as much more. 
When bees or hives have to be made they should be tested side 
by side, and the management on the same terms. Your readers will 
remember that in a previous article a stone dyke was all that separated 
my hives from another lot placed there one day before mine—an 
advantage, as the day was a fine one. Neither of our hives was so 
near the Heather by a quarter of a mile as others, but I am unprepared 
to say whether that distance nearer is any advantage. Many bee¬ 
keepers know that the weather during the time the Heather was in 
bloom was very unpropitious. I may state that the hives standing 
Bide by side, or on both sides of the dyke, were very much the same 
—stocks, swarms, and two or three unswarmed ones in each, the 
difference being form of hive and management. Those of my neigh. 
