If judiciously practiced, they will find that
their colonies may always be kept powerful, and that they may be managed
with very great economy in time and labor. As Apiarians may be so
situated as to wish to increase their bees quite rapidly, I shall give
such methods as from numerous experiments, many of them conducted on a
large scale, I have found to be the best. I wish it however to be most
distinctly understood, that I do not consider _very_ rapid
multiplication as likely to succeed, except in the hands of skillful
Apiarians; and under ordinary circumstances it requires too much time,
care and honey, to be of very great practical value. Its chief merit
consists in the short time which it requires to build up an Apiary.
After trying my mode of management for a few seasons, a bee-keeper may
find out, that he is in all respects, favorably situated for taking care
of a large stock of bees. Suppose him to have acquired both skill and
confidence, and that he has ten powerful colonies. If he is willing to
do without surplus honey for one season, and the honey-harvest should be
very productive, he may without feeding, and without very much labor,
safely increase his ten colonies to thirty. If he chooses to feed
largely, he may _possibly_ end the season with fifty or sixty, or even
more; but he will _probably_ end it in such a manner as most thoroughly
to disgust him with his folly, and to teach him that in bee-keeping, as
well as in other things, "Haste makes waste."

On the supposition that by the time the fruit-trees are in blossom, the
Apiarian has, in hives of my construction, ten powerful colonies, let
him select four of the strongest, and make from each a forced swarm. He
will now have four queenless colonies, which will at once, proceed to
supply themselves with a young queen. In about ten days, he may make
from his other six stocks, six more forced swarms. He will probably find
in making these, many sealed queens, if he has delayed the operation
until about swarming time; so that he may give to each of the six stocks
from which he has expelled a swarm, the means of soon obtaining
another. If he has not enough for this purpose, he must take the
required number from the four stocks which are raising young queens, the
exact condition of which ought to have been previously ascertained. Some
of these stocks will be found to contain a large number of queen cells.
Huber, in one of his experiments, found twenty-four in one