Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/228

224, and ultimately more profitable to the owner, than the almost universally practised mode by suffocation, which is too well known to need description. The latter system may yield a greater return in proportion to the hives operated upon,—but in the former, there is a much greater number of hives available. For example: Suppose two apiaries, each containing five stock-hives at the end of July, exclusive of as many swarms recently thrown. The owner of the one, practising the depriving system, takes from each of his stocks ten ℔s. of honey, making an amount of fifty ℔s. as his honey-harvest. The owner of the other, an abettor of suffocation, proceeds in September to smoke his five old hives, and receives from each twenty-five ℔s. of honey, making an amount of 125 ℔s. as his honey-harvest, between two and three times the quantity of the other. In the following year, the Depriver has his five old stock-hives, and the five swarms now become stocks also; from the whole ten he now takes 100 ℔s. of honey, while at the same time his apiary is augmented by the addition of ten new swarms, making twenty for the following year; while his rival possesses only his former number of five yielding 125 ℔s. In the next year, that is, two years from the commencement of the comparative trial, the Depriver has twenty stock-hives yielding 200 ℔s.,—and so on by a geometrical ratio,—while the other remains at his original 125 ℔s. This calculation is made on the supposition that each owner takes but one swarm from each stock, and without making any allowance for losses and failures