These, however, are advantages which very few situations can afford; probably but few of my readers may reside in the neighbourhood of heaths, and still fewer may be disposed to incur the trouble and expense of removal. If therefore incorporation be desirable in any particular case, I can only recommend that attention be paid to feeding the bees with sugared ale; by the assistance of which, indeed, I should not be afraid of carrying, even a weak stock, very safely through the winter and early spring. "Give your bees," says Mr. Isaac, "two harvests in one summer" (alluding to the practice of transportation), "and you may make almost any swarm rich enough to live through the following winter." This second harvest may be very efficiently supplied by an attention to feeding, during mild weather in winter, and particularly in the early spring,--for the management of which, see, Chap. XXIII. on Feeding. CHAPTER XX. PROPER PERIODS OF DEPRIVATION. It should be an invariable rule with the apiarian, never to remove an upper hive or box, till an under one be quite full; and even then, it should be ascertained that the contents of the inferior one, (if taken at Michaelmas,) be not less than 18 pounds. If it do not contain so much, a sufficient quantity should be returned in the box that has been removed, otherwise recourse must be had to feeding. +Mr. Isaac+ says that he has carried a colony that had no honey at Michaelmas, safely through the winter and spring, with only eight pounds of honey. Huber succeeded with less; but it appears that his observations were made upon weak stocks that were not altogether destitute. A variety of experiments were made by +Mr. John Hunter+ and +Mr. Keys+, to ascertain _the quantity consumed during_ the respective months of _winter and spring_, and they all led to one conclusion, namely, that it _amounted upon an average to eight pounds_, taking the season through, from the beginning of October to the end of May, when the spring proves ungenial. _During the first six months the consumption was not more than five pounds upon an average_, and the colder the weather the smaller was the consumption. _Vide_ 2nd page of Chap. XXIV.