PROFITS IN BEES. 



844 



PROFITS IN BEES. 



ness, even these returns are not bad; for 

 if he secured only enough for family use, the 

 diversion or change to relieve the tired 

 brain is worth something. 



The question as to whether one should keep 

 few or many bees will depend upon many 

 conditions ; but the principal one is the 

 ability of the man. Many a person can han- 

 dle a few chickens, and get good lesults; 

 but when he runs the number up into the 

 liundreds he meets with failure and disas- 

 ter. Some of our friends have done remark- 

 ably well with a few colonies; but when 

 they have attempted to double or treble the 

 number they entered into a business propo- 

 sition that iiroved to be too much for them. 



Many years ago a neighbor of ours clear- 

 ed a thousand dollars from one acre of on- 

 ions. It made him wild. He bought ten 

 more acres of the same kind of onion land, 

 going into debt for it, and expected to clear 

 the following year $10,000. When he man- 

 aged the one acre he did all the work him- 

 self; but when he worked the ten acres he 

 had to hire help. The help was incompe- 

 tent, or did not understand. Onions fell in 

 price; and at the final roundup that year he 

 had a great stock of poor onions without a 

 buyer. They rotted. He became discour- 

 aged, and lost all he had. 



A good many, on account of a lack of ex- 

 perience or perhaps business ability, not un- 

 derstanding their own limitations and those 

 of their localities, will plunge into bee-keep- 

 ing too deeply and meet with disaster. 

 There are, undoubtedly, some people who 

 can keep more bees by scattering them in 

 outyards; and if they have the requisite 

 training and biisiness ability they can make 

 more money. But where we find one person 

 who can manage 500 colonies or more suc- 

 cessfully, there will be dozens who can not 

 go beyond the 200 or 300 mark. The same 

 rule applies to any business. 



Now let us look at the other side of the 

 question — the side of expansion. Perhaps 

 here is a bee-keeper who has 300 colonies. 

 During the busy season he is comfortably 

 busy. But during six months in the year 

 his time is not very profitably employed^ a 

 distinct loss; for it will take him only a 

 short time, comparatively, to get his supers 

 ready for the next season, nail his hives, re- 

 paint them, or do other preliminary work 

 that can easily be done indoors, and yet his 

 interest, or liis rent and his living expenses 

 are going right on. Suppose, for example, 

 that this bee-keeper has 600 colonies, or 

 1000; that he has good business ability ; that 



he has plenty of bee-range. Suppose he 

 scatters this number in 15 different yards, 

 none further than 15 miles from his home, 

 and a good part of them not over four or five 

 miles away. In the busy season he will, or 

 course, have to employ help. If he has the 

 right kind of executive ability he will see 

 that that help is profitably employed. When 

 the rush of work is over he will look after 

 the marketing of the crop, put the bees into 

 winter quarteis, perhaps doing the work 

 himself with the occasional help of one man 

 and a team. In cold weather he can devote 

 all of his time profitably in i)reparing for the 

 next season. Now, while he is operating 

 1000 colonies it costs him no more to live ; 

 the same horse and wagon that will carry 

 him to two or three hundred will carry him 

 to the other seven or eight hmidred. If he is 

 running for extracted honey, the same ex- 

 tractor, uncapping-knives, and smokers can 

 be used at each yard. He is thus enabled to 

 put his invested capital where it will be earn 

 ing money for him all the time in the busy 

 season instead of eating up interest part of 

 the time. We will suppose that some of his 

 swarms get away from him ; we will also 

 suppose that some of the work is not done 

 as well as when he had only 300 colonies ; 

 but he has increased his honey crop by 

 three times, possibly, and has increased his 

 actual operating expenses only to the extent 

 of the help that he has to pay for, extia 

 hives, and sugar to feed. A couple of men 

 and a boy three months in the year— the man 

 at $2.00 and a boy at $1.00 per day— would 

 make his expense $450. To this we will add 

 $50 for extra team hiie. The cost of the ex- 

 tra 700 colonies with hives and supers divid- 

 ed by ten (assuming that they would last ten 

 years) would be $250 more, or $750. But we 

 must add $250 more for sugar for feeding, 

 and $250 for sections, foundation, and ship- 

 ping cases, making $1250 as the total added 

 expense for the 700 extra colonies. Say he 

 is producing comb honey, and that he can 

 average 35 lbs. per colony. If this nets him 

 14 cts. he would get from 300 colonies $1500. 

 If he has 1000 colonies his gross income will 

 be $5000 by adding only $1250 to his general 

 expenses. 



This is a supposable and a possible case. 

 The most that we would show is that the op- 

 erating and overhead expenses will not be 

 proportionately increased if the number of 

 colonies be doubled or trebled — all on the 

 assumption, of ccurse, that our bee keeping 

 friend has the licccssan skill and business 

 ability, 



