672 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



INTRODUCTION. 



By PROF. II. A. SURFACE, Economic Zoologist. 



There are certain facts about bee-keeping in this State, which 

 are not generally known or considered, and I, therefore, take the 

 liberty to outline some of them here, as I am in recent review of this 

 subject and conversant with such facts, because they are in the 

 line of my specialties. 



There are about 28,000 bee-keepers in the State of Pennsylvania, 

 and if each of these have three colonies (hives or "skeps") of bees, 

 which is a low estimate, this means that there are 84,000 colonies 

 of bees, and if these be worth $3.00 per colony, which is also low as 

 a fair average, considering that modern hives cost from $2.00 to 

 $3.00 per hive alone, it will be seen that the State of Pennsylvania 

 has over $250,000 in the value of bees alone, and certainly $100,000 or 

 a great deal more, in bee fixtures and apiary supplies. The annual 

 production of honey in Pennsylvania is not less than 1,000,000 

 pounds, and at 15 cents per pound, this amounts to $150,000, making 

 the value of bees, bee fixtnres and honey in this State per year 

 more than $500,000. This is, indeed, a low estimate, and is beyond 

 any doubt very clearly within the bounds of accuracy. When we con- 

 sider that there are some men in this State, such as Mr. O. O. Fuller, 

 Turbottville, Pa., who has presented one of the papers submitted in 

 the following pages, who are making bee-keeping their sole occupa- 

 tion, we can see that there are great possibilities of this compara- 

 tively undeveloped side-line of agriculture. There is no business 

 connected with the production of food or clothing for mankind 

 which, if properly handled, will give such a large percentage of in- 

 come for so very small investment. 



With the 84,000 hives of bees in this State, the production of 

 honey in this Commonwealth by skillful bee-keepers could and would 

 be made to average at least one hundred pounds per year for each 

 colony, and this would mean over seven times as much honey pro- 

 duction as there is at present. Our agricultural people are missing 

 this income, because they are not familiar with the science and art of 

 Agriculture or Bee-Keeping. Thus there is a loss of over 7,000,000 

 pounds of honey per year to the citizens of this State, which means 

 a value of over $1,000,000, on account of the ignorance of modern 

 methods that have been proven by man to be as certain as the latest 

 and most beneficial methods in horticulture or agriculture. 



There is also an annual loss of at least one-fifth of the swarms in 

 this State at swarming time, through the lack of knowledge of 

 the methods of preventing the bees from escaping at such time, and 

 this amounts to about 17,000 colonies. Counting these as worth 

 $2.00 per colony, when the swarming is lost through failure to clip 

 the wings of the queens and otherwise adopt modern methods in bee- 

 keeping, it is a drain of at least $34,000 per year, through loss by 

 escape from swarms. 



