ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPEES' ASSOCIATION. 189 



arm being gone until he came back home and then saw everything 

 as it had been and realized what it was to be now, and he was pretty 

 blue for a while, and when he wrote he said he had been out with some 

 of the boys and they had been getting rabbits, and he got just as many 

 as any one did, and then he said they went swimming and he found 

 he could swim just as well as ever, and he went on and told the different 

 things he could do, and he said he decided he could keep bees too, and 

 so he has arranged, has a little hook on his arm, and, as I believe you 

 call the, screw-eyes in all the supers, and he has that fitted up now 

 so that he can go right ahead and do his work in good shape, and I 

 think a man like that has determination and is going to go ahead 

 and make good, do even better than he did before, perhaps. I think 

 it would be a pleasure to have such a man work for one. I think we 

 ought to be glad to have them. 



And the lack of money, that ought not to deter any one from going 

 into the business heavier. As far as the bees are concerned, of course 

 any good bee-keeper will have ways come readily to his mind as to 

 how he can increase by making nuclei perhaps at swarming time, or 

 waiting until after the honey flow and then make an increase, and 

 can easily build up to a large number. And a man who has the money 

 certainly should not hesitate, for where would you And anj^thing to 

 give you such returns as that. Probably all of you have had some 

 time or other 100 per cent return from your bees, and I know of several 

 bee-keepers this year that made over $20,000 — I don't mean made that, 

 I mean sold their honey for over $20,000, and I think there is one 

 bee-keeper in the west that sold his for $28,000. Now, I suppose that 

 bee-keeper probably had less than one-tenth of the money invested 

 that he would have had in order to make that much money from farm- 

 ing. 



In regard to bottling, some bee-keepers will continue to bottle, 

 and will find that it pays them well. Others, no matter whether thej' 

 have a few hundred or whether they have a few thousand, will decide 

 that, it paj^s them better to raise honey and let some one else do the 

 bottling. At least we have found that true. Different bee-keepers 

 have told us that thej^ have found it true. In our oAvn experience at 

 Oberlin we have gotten almost out of the bottling business, simply 

 because the big bottling concerns have crowded us oiit, but we really 

 think we are doing better by just devoting our energies to raising 

 the honey and selling it in bulk. Of course, some of our large bee- 

 keepers are continuing to bottle, and say they are going to sell honey 

 any way they can, in the bottle or in bulk or any way, just to sell it. 

 That will rest with the individual bee-keeper. 



Last fall there was one bee-keeper who sold about a thousand 

 dollars worth of honey to one person, a large firm. That firm came 

 right into his own town and sold that honej-, it was before there was 

 any drop in prices, sold that honey at a lower price than the bee-keeper 

 could afford to put it up and sell it at to the retailer, notwithstanding 

 that the middleman had made his profit in between. 



In better bee-keeping it will be necessary to have better locations. 

 Some of us have been contented with locations that have been very 

 poor in comparison to what we might have had — in comparison with 



