1901 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



939 



as father had kept bees several j-ears be- 

 fore, I knew something- about them, but not 

 after the hnjiroved fashion, as father kept 

 his bees in box hives. Next I subscribed 

 for the . hnci ican Jh'c/oiiina/, read Ouin- 

 bj-'s and Lanj^stroth's books, and in March 

 bought two colonies of bees, and the hives 

 which I needed for two j^ears, at a cost of 

 $30 for the whole." 



"How did you succeed?" 



"There beini^ a poor season in 1869 I had 

 but one swarm from the two colonies pur- 

 chased, and had to feed $S worth of sug^ar 

 to g-et the three throug-h the winter of 1869." 



"Whew I If I had such success as that 

 with my 5.0 I should wish I had never g"one 

 into the business, as that would add $125 to 

 the first cost of coinmencing. But did you 

 do no better the next year?" 



"During 1870 I received enough from the 

 bees to buj' all the fixtures I wished for 

 1871. and a little to help on my other ex- 

 penses on the farm, for farming was my 

 main business at that time; and the first 

 $35 was all I ever paid out for the bees but 

 what they brought me in; for I resolved, 

 after this first $35, I would lay out no more 

 money on them than they broug^ht in, be- 

 lieving- that, if I could not make 3 colonies 

 pay, I could not 300. But had I had 75 col- 

 onies at that time, with little or no experi- 

 ence, the loss of throwing the business up 

 would have been g"reater bj' many times 

 than $35." 



"But it seems you did not throw it up." 



"No. During- 1871 I g-ot enoug-h from the 

 bees to a little more than pay expenses, be- 

 sides a lot of experience, which was of more 

 value to me during- the years to come than 

 many dollars would have been without the 

 experience: for in the fall of 1872 I found 

 that I had jui average j'ield of 80 pounds of 

 comb honey froin each colony in the springs, 

 which was sold so as to give me $559, free 

 of all expense incurred bj' the bees." 



"Pretty g-ood pay, was it not?" 



"Well, yes. But you will see that this 

 was the first I had really gotten, so it must 

 be spread out so as to cover a period of four 

 j'ears. At this time I did not have as manj^ 

 bees as 3'ou propose bu\'ing to start with. 

 My opinion is that, had I bought 50 colonies 

 to start with, I should have turned from the 

 business in disgust, with a loss of several 

 hundred dollars, and that the bee-world 

 would have been spared the scribbling done 

 over Doolittle's name for the past 30 years." 



"But you succeeded?" 



"Yes. But before we go further I wish 

 to tell you about something which pleased 

 me during 1872. I bought an extractor, 

 and, being determined to give the bees the 

 care they needed, and knowing that the 

 time the bees needed the most attention 

 came in haying time, I hired a man to take 

 my place in the ha3'-field. It so happened 

 that he commenced work on the day bass- 

 wood commenced to bloom. Previously I 

 had hived a prime swarm, and concluded 

 to devote them to extracted honey. The 

 man worked 16 days at $1.75 a daj', and I 



extracted honey enoug^h from that swarm 

 during those 16 days to pay the man for his 

 work. I tell you this to show that, when 

 properl3^ managed, in a fairly good seiison. 

 one swarm of bees is equivalent to a man 

 at work in the hay-held, and so it will not 

 pay to neglect a whole apiary to go into the 

 field to work, as many would-be bee-keep- 

 ers so generally do, and afterward growl 

 about the bees not paying them. You can 

 hire a man to take j^our place in the hay or 

 harvest field; but if you expect to become 

 master of the bee business, so as to make 

 it Y>i\y, you can not hire a man to take your 

 place in the apiary during the honey sea- 

 son, as it takes much more skill to be a suc- 

 cessful honey-producer than it does to pitch 

 hay successfully. When the bees do not re- 

 quire any special attention, then they can 

 be left to do other work as we have time; 

 but if the bee-keeper would be successful, 

 he can not afford to neglect them for a sin- 

 gle day, when that day will put them in 

 condition to bring him dollars in the near 

 future. " 



"I think I begin to see that much which 

 I have thought about ' bees working for 

 nothing and boarding themselves' has been 

 merely an idle dream. But what of the 

 years after 1872?" 



" Since then my average income from the 

 bees has not been far from $1200 a year, 

 above the expense incurred by them. In 

 other words, the bees have paid me a sala- 

 vy of not far fi'om $1200 a year, on an aver- 

 age, for the past 28 years, and that with 

 only about 75 colonies on an average each 

 year. I have not kept a larger number, on 

 account of other things which demand my 

 attention more or less of the time. Had I 

 bought 50 or more colonies to start with, 

 the expense in starting would have been 

 from $350 to $500, which, in all probability, 

 I should have lost in the business, for I 

 should not have had a knowlege equal to 

 doing so large a business on the start." 



"I am glad to have had this talk with 

 you; and now on leaving tell me in brief 

 just what you would advise in the matter 

 of iny keeping bees." 



"My advice to you, and all others think- 

 ing of bee-keeping as a business, would be, 

 purchase from two to four colonies of bees; 

 post j^ourself by re^lding and experiment- 

 ing with them, as j'ou can find time from 

 the business you are already in, and thus 

 find out for yourself which is the better for 

 a livelihood — the business you iire already 

 in, or keeping bees. If successful after a 

 series of years, you can give up your other 

 business if j'ou wish to; and if bees are a 

 failure in your hands, then \'OU are but lit- 

 tle ovit for having tried your hand at it." 



[Although Mr. Doolittle has cautioned be- 

 ginners against expecting too much from 

 bees, 3'et in spite of that caution some ma^' 

 imagine they can do as well as he. When 

 he began, prices on honey were much high- 

 er than now, and the results, from a dol- 

 lars-and-cents point of view, would be cor- 



