ess of time the honey resources of the country might be very
greatly increased.

OVERSTOCKING A DISTRICT WITH BEES.

I come now to a point of the very first importance to all interested in
the cultivation of bees. If the opinions which the great majority of
American bee-keepers entertain, are correct, then the keeping of bees
must, in our country, be always an insignificant pursuit. I confess that
I find it difficult to repress a smile, when the owner of a few hives,
in a district where as many hundreds might be made to prosper, gravely
imputes his ill success, to the fact that too many bees are kept in his
vicinity! The truth is, that as bees are frequently managed, they are of
but little value, even though in "a land flowing with milk and honey."
If in the Spring, a colony of bees is prosperous and healthy, (see p.
207) it will gather abundant stores, even if hundreds equally strong,
are in its immediate vicinity, while if it is feeble, it will be of
little or no value, even if there is not another swarm within a dozen
miles of it.

Success in bee-keeping requires that a man should be in some things, a
very close imitator of Napoleon, who always aimed to have an
overwhelming force, at the right time and in the right place; so the
bee-keeper must be sure that his colonies are numerous, just at the time
when their numbers can be turned to the best account. If the bees cannot
get up their numbers until the honey-harvest is well nigh gone, numbers
will then be of as little service as many of the famous armies against
which "the soldier of Europe" contended; which, after the fortunes of
the campaign were decided, only served to swell the triumphant spoils of
the mighty conqueror. A bee-keeper with feeble stocks in the Spring,
which become strong only when there is nothing to get, is like a farmer
who contrives to hire no hands to reap his harvests, but suffers the
crops to rot upon the ground, and then at great expense, hires a number
of stalworth laborers to idle about his premises and eat him out of
house and home!

I do not believe that there is a _single square mile_ in this whole
country, which is overstocked with bees, unless it is one so unsuitable
for bee-keeping as to make it unprofitable to attempt it at all. Such an
assertion will doubtless, appear to many, very unguarded; and yet it is
made advisedly, and I am happy to be able to confirm it, by reference to
the experience of the largest cultivators in Eur