336 
THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 
should all be made populous, and rich in stores, even if to 
do it requires the number of colonies to be reduced one- 
half, or more.* The bee-keeper who has ten strong 
stocks in the Spring, will, by judicious management with 
movable-comb hives, be able to close the season with a 
larger Apiary than one who begins it with thirty, or more, 
feeble colonies. 
If two or more colonies, which are to be united in the 
Fall, are not close together, their hives must be gradually 
approximated (p. 280), and the bees may then, with 
proper precautions (p. 203), be put into the same hive. 
If the central combs of the hive are not well stored 
with honey, they should be exchanged for such as are, so 
that, when the cold compels the bees to recede from the 
(.liter combs, they may cluster among their stores. If the 
fullest honey-combs are not of worker size, the caps of 
their cells may be sliced off, and the combs put in the 
upper apartment, where the bees can remove the honey, 
and store it in the centre of the hive. In districts where 
bees gather but little honey in the Fall, such precautions, 
in cold climates, will be specially needed, as, often, after 
breeding is over, their central combs will be almost 
empty. 
As bees are natives of a warm climate, they do not 
instinctively place their honey where it will be most acces¬ 
sible to them in cold weather, but simply where it will 
least interfere with the raising of brood. Neither, if, while 
the weather is warm, they can easily communicate through 
the combs of the hive, can they be depended on to make 
such passages through them, as will allow them to pass 
readily, in cold weather, from one to another. 
* Small colonics consume, proportionally much more food than large ones, and 
»ften perish from Inability to maintain sufficient heat. Stocks should not, how¬ 
ever, be made over-papidout, as their great internal heat would create restlessness 
*jd engender dysentery, by leading to an inordinate consumption of food (p. 2T>6). 
