1. A full force of workers at the commencement of the season. To secure
this, I fed them two or three pounds of syrup, when first placed upon
the stand early in March.
2. This gave them from one to three weeks start of the others, in
commencing work in the surplus boxes.
3. I think, further, one cause of such force of workers was a most
prolific queen. Twelve boxes of six pounds capacity are now almost full
of bees, though without honey or comb, except one or two.
4. But this great number of workers, and early filling the hives with
bees, would not have given the surplus had they not been satisfied not
to swarm. With the purpose to swarm and preparation for it, they would
have given an early swarm, followed by one, two, or three after-swarms
probably; and the 198 lbs. of surplus have been placed in other hives in
the shape of arrangements and stores for wintering one, two, or three
new colonies of bees.
In my experiments with bees, I have generally found a loss of two weeks
time in preparation for swarming, in which little or no surplus honey is
stored--the great body of the workers clustering out in idleness. Or if
boxes were furnished them and filled with bees, I have been disappointed
on the swarm leaving the box empty of bees, to find it entirely
destitute of honey.
Although my advanced age and infirmities moderate my ambition in the new
business of bee-keeping, and so limit my experiments that I have never
tried to increase my stock by artificial swarming, I have no doubt but
the greatest success in the business can only be secured by the use of
non-swarming hives and artificial swarming. Overstocking the honey-field
is, in my settled conviction, the great obstacle in the way of
satisfactory success. This makes it necessary to have the entire control
of the increase of colonies, to limit their number to the capacity of
the field. I hope to do better another season, from knowledge gained by
the experiments of the past.