Number of Colonies. I set upon the stand in the spring twenty-three colonies. Of these, three were in old box hives which were broken up when they cast the first swarm, and the hives converted to kindling wood. One of the remaining twenty, from loss of queen or other cause, failed entirely; and a new swarm was introduced to occupy its place. This left nineteen of the old colonies, for giving swarms and surplus honey.
Surplus honey in boxes. I find on adding up the product from my hives, they have given me one thousand and eighty (1,080) pounds of surplus. Perhaps in an ordinary field and poor season I should be content with this; but I think, with the experience of this season and some improvements in my hives, I could do better tried over again.
Of this 1,080 (or to be exact, 1,080½) pounds, five colonies give 625½ pounds, an average of 125 lbs., and 74¾ lbs. more than half of the whole surplus. One of the five best gave one hundred and ninety-eight and a half (198½) pounds.
I attribute this success of my best colonies to the following causes:
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.