42 



THE BEE-KEEPER'S REVIEW 



The Stony Road Over Which Beginners Must 

 Travel to Success. 



M. P. CADY. 



n^HERE is an 

 T^ old saying 

 that the most im- 

 portant part of 

 anything- is its be- 

 ginning. I doubt 

 if this is true in 

 all cases, but to 

 me there is a 

 peculiar interest 

 in learning how a 

 bee keeper made 

 his start— those early struggles (and 

 they usually are struggles) have a 

 decided human interest. As a rule, 

 specialists reap the greatest financial 

 success, but, occasionally, a man makes 

 a decided success of bee keeping as a side 

 issue. In this case I put my friend M. P. 

 Cady, of Birnamwood, Wisconsin; and so 

 decided and clear-cut is his success that 

 1 finally asked him how he came to start 

 and make the success that he has. His 

 reply was not intended for publication, 

 but it seemed to me so interesting that I 

 prevailed upon him to allow me to lay it 

 before my readers. Here is his letter: - 



Birnamwood, Wis., Oct. 9, 1909. 



My dear Mr. Hutchinson,— Some time 

 ago I received your kind invitation to 

 write you a letter in regard to my present 

 prosperity, with other items of interest, 

 and this evening, I will comply. 



Some twenty-five years ago I first be- 

 gan keeping bees, starting with an apiary 

 of about fifty colonies, which were taken 

 on shares. The season was cold and 

 generally poor, and for a novice there 

 were many pitfalls. The crop was 

 small, and in the fall 1 had fourteen colo- 

 nies as my share of the increase. Although 

 the season was so unfavorable, I became 

 fully in love with the bees, and spent 



many happy hours in watching them, 

 while the evenings were spent in 

 eager reading of the bee-books which 

 I was fortunate enough to borrow from 

 an old-time bee-kesper. I read Quinby's 

 book, also that of Prof. Cook, both of 

 which were a constant source of instruc- 

 tion. 



My second season was more prosper- 

 ous. I wintered all my colonies except 

 one, and in the spring bought five more. 

 From these I secured about 1,500 pounds 

 of comb honey, and found myself fairly 

 started in bee keeping with the ambition 

 of making it my sole business. For sev- 

 eral years I had varying success, and 

 then came one of those seasons of total 

 failure. I started the season with fifty 

 colonies and bright hopes for a big crop 

 of honey. I closed the season with about 

 300 pounds of comb honey as my total 

 crop, with bills for supplies to pay — to 

 say nothing about the inconvient necessity 

 of having something to appease the in- 

 exorable demands of hunger. 



Under these conditions I went 75 

 miles from home, where my wife and I 

 engaged in school teaching, work which 

 we had both done before our bee keeping 

 days. Together we received $65 per 

 month, and this seemed like the m=inna in 

 the wilderness to us. We worked with 

 all our energy, pleased our patrons, and 

 got our combined salary raised to $80 

 per month the second year. Under this 

 stimulus we worked, and, finally, having 

 raised our school from a two-departmant 

 school to a high school, we received a 

 combined salary of $1,000 per year— 

 which latter salary we received for seven 

 consecutive years. We taught in the 

 B rnamwood schools for 1 1 years, and 

 in the meantime, by private study, raised 



