Hi all
The "overstocking" of honey bee colonies is something that everyone has an opinion about but facts are very seldom used in these discussions. Where I learned beekeeping in Southern California, yards were typically a truckload, about 120 hives. Here in NYS, they tend to max at about 3 dozen. Why? Because that's what they do. To further stir up the hive, some info from the experts, the Roots:

> The nectar from alfalfa is secreted so abundantly during the time it is in bloom that anywhere from 100 to 500 colonies can be supported in a given location. In Colorado, however, it is found more profitable to have apiaries containing no more than from 100 to 150 colonies, owing to the very great overstocking in many of the best localities. Bee-keepers have rushed to this land of gold and golden honey in such numbers that in the great alfalfa-growing regions apiaries are stuck in very closely, from half a mile to a mile apart, so it is not now profitable to have more than 100 colonies to the yard. In other localities not so much overstocked, from 200 to 300 colonies can be kept in a single apiary.

> In some locations, notably in California, Colorado, Cuba, and in some portions of Florida, one can have as many as 300 or 400 colonies, and in some rare instances as many as 500 colonies in one apiary. E. W. Alexander, of Delanson, N. Y., has some 700 colonies in one bee-yard; but he has immense acreages of buckwheat and goldenrod. The celebrated Sespe apiary, in Southern California, owned by J. F. McIntyre, has, in one spot, some 600 hives of bees; but the great mountains on either side, the fertile valley, and the great abundance of honey flora, make such a number possible.

> I will not attempt to draw out any fine moral distinctions that may be involved in this question, any more than to state that, if a bee-keeper has by luck, careful observation, or at great expense, discovered a locality that yields large amounts of honey, he ought to be left in the peaceful enjoyment and free possession of his discovery, to the extent that no one else should locate an apiary nearer than a mile and a half from any of his apiaries; and right here it seems to me the principle of the golden rule ought to be used to settle such little problems; for it is practically certain that bee-keeper No. 2, who comes into an already occupied field to divide the profits, would not regard with very much favor such action on the part of another if he were in the position of the one having the prior rights.

A. I. Root and E. R. Root. 1908. THE ABC and XYZ of BEE CULTURE. MEDINA, OHIO

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