THE BEEKEEPERS' REVIEW 



45 



Courage and Perserverance, Coupled With 

 Experience, Make a Winning Team. 



F. B. CAVANAGH. 



¥' 



'HERE are 

 two things 

 which attract 

 an editor's eye 

 when he is seek- 

 ing contribu- 

 tions. First, a 

 thing worth 

 writing about, 

 and, second, 

 that knowledge 

 cleverly written 

 up. Theodore Roosevelt went hunting in 

 the African woods, whereby he secured 

 something to write about; he also pos- 

 sessed the ability to tell a bear story, so 

 he sold his article for $1.00 a word. 

 Now "W. Z." knows I am not a clever 

 writer; he didn't even offer to pay the 

 dollar a word, but in view of the fact 

 that he asked me to write at all, I believe 

 he must have seen me coming out of the 

 woods somewhere, and thinks I have a 

 story. 



At the age of 14, just 15 years ago, I 

 started bee keeping with one-half of a 

 hive of bees. The other half belonged to 

 my mother. I took care of both halves, 

 and extracted more stingers by far than 

 I did pounds of honey. Mother and I 

 were the best of partners, and both con- 

 tributed our share to the welfare of the 

 business. Although we do not still main- 

 tain our partnership on the same financial 

 basis, I believe that she still shares the 

 pleasure in watching my successes of 

 today. 



My early experiences, some of them 

 laughable in the extreme, were very 

 similar to those of others who made a 

 close study of the business. I was an 

 enthusiast on bees; bought books and 

 read three bee journals, and swallowed 

 everything without winking an eye. 



Success attended my efforts from the 

 first. The bees increased to over 100 

 colonies; and I went through college; 

 meanwhile, buying out my mother's 

 interest, and increasing the bees to over 

 500 colonies; all run for extracted honey. 



Thus far, I had shipped bees by the 

 car load, worked bees on shares for 

 others, and leased apiaries to some ex- 

 tent. Then came the comical part of it 

 all: 1 sold the goose that laid the golden 

 egg; sold the bees that had paid the ex- 

 penses of my education. The two years 

 of delightful (?) experiences under such 

 titles as Gen. Mgr., Assistant Superin- 

 tendent, etc., may be omitted here as 

 foreign to bee keeping interests. In fact 

 these two lean years ate up the seven or 

 more previous fat years by exhausting 

 my capital. Now, this is no hard luck 

 story, but I want to explain this briefly to 

 show just what can be done with bees, 

 even if money is a minus quantity. 



Excuse me; I should say, with a wife 

 who is a hustler, bees and experience and 

 a clean record. 



My second start wasn't made with one 

 hive, but with 200, three-story hives, 

 equipped for honey. I went in debt for 

 the whole outfit, and for expenses of 

 every description. My calculations were 

 based on the results of similar outfits 

 run under similar conditions. 1 believed 

 the cause was just and that my creditors 

 were safe, even should the season prove 

 a poor one. It did not, however, as the 

 season was bountiful, and we sold about 

 an even $2,000 worth of honey and 

 wax from the two apiaries. 



The next step was to determine on a 

 location and place suitable for a perma- 

 nent home. We are now livingat Hebron, 

 Indiana, having shipped our bees here 

 from Boscobel, Wisconsin, and added 



