, for that season, will take place. If the Apiarian
wishes to do more than to double his stocks in one season, and is
favorably situated for practicing natural swarming, he can allow the
stocks that raise young queens to swarm if they will, and he can
strengthen the small swarms by giving to them comb with honey and
maturing brood from other hives. Or he can, after an interval of about
three weeks, make one swarm from every two good ones in his Apiary, in a
way that will soon be described.

I do not know that I can find a better place in which to impress certain
highly important principles upon the attention of the bee-keeper. I am
afraid, that in spite of all that I can say, many persons as soon as
they find themselves able to multiply colonies at pleasure, will so
overdo the matter, as to run the risk of losing all their bees. If the
Apiarian aims at obtaining a large quantity of honey in any one season,
he cannot at the furthest, more than double the number of his stocks:
nor can he do this, unless they are all strong, and the season
favorable. The moment that he aims, in any one season, at a more rapid
increase, he must not only renounce the idea of having any surplus
honey, but must expect to purchase food for the support of his colonies,
unless he is willing to see them all perish by starvation. The time,
food, care and skill required to multiply stocks with very great
rapidity, in our short and uncertain climate, are so great that not one
Apiarian in a hundred can expect to make it profitable; while the great
mass of those who attempt it, will be almost sure, at the close of the
season, to find themselves in possession of stocks which have been so
managed as to be of very little value.

Before explaining some other methods of artificial swarming, which I
have employed to great advantage, I shall endeavor to impress upon the
mind of the bee-keeper, the great importance of thoroughly understanding
each season, the precise object at which he is aiming, before he enters
on the work of increasing his colonies. If his object is, in any one
season, to get the largest yield of surplus honey, he must at once make
up his mind to be content with a very moderate increase of stocks. If,
on the contrary, he desires to multiply his colonies, say, three or four
fold, he must be prepared, not only to relinquish the expectation of
obtaining any surplus honey, if the season should prove unfavorable, but
to purchase food for the su