GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



650 lbs. of honej', W. E. Allen's December delivery. Mr. .Vllen, who stands beside the honey, secured 

 4350 lbs. from 75 colonies, spring count, increa«ins; to 100. This was the largest yield recorded for the 

 vicinitv of New Haven, 111. The buckets tilled with comb honey accommodate travelers lie meets on the road. 



men who are engaged in the bee business 

 along with other lines of work. They know 

 they make a living, but cannot estimate the 

 profit they receive from bees nor tell whetli- 

 er keeping bees pays them at all. 



The farmer who has bees or the beekeeper 

 who raises poultry should keep his accounts 

 in such a manner that he will know whether 

 his bees are making him a profit or a loss. 

 If a loss, the business should be disposed 

 of. If a profit, the business should be pro- 

 vided with what capital it needs, and an 

 amount set aside for operating expenses 

 and kept solely for the apiary. 



There is this danger in engaging in two 

 kinds of work, such as poultry-raising and 

 beekeeping, that the owner may never learn 

 tliat he is losing money in one of his lines. 

 He may be sinking a dollar a day in his 

 poultry, and making three a day from his 

 bees, and conclude at the end of several 

 years that both bees and poultry are un- 

 profitable because neither, to his view, can 

 make him a living by itself. On the othei' 

 hand, had he known the situation he could 

 have been deriving a comfortable living 

 from a delightful pursuit. 



A farmer gets seven cents a pound for 

 his hogs. He thinks he is making a lot of 

 money. Where did his feed come from? 

 Oh! he raised that right on the farm. But 

 raising it took labor. Now, labor costs, 

 whether that of the farmer or the hired 

 man. The same farmer will realize how 

 foolish it is to maintain perambulatory 

 corn-cribs and dispose- of them for a frac- 



tion of what he has put into them. If he 

 were raising hogs and nothing else, and 

 eitlier buying his feed or growing what he 

 needed, he could easily tell just how much 

 he is making out of the business, after 

 deducting a fair price for his own labor. 



The considerations are the same with 

 13ractical apiculture. The beeman can as 

 well afford to jjour sugar syrup all winter 

 into a lot of backlot buzzers without getting 

 any honey as to throw it into the drain. 

 After several years of the business, if he 

 finds he is making nothing more than wages, 

 he might better sell the outfit to some one 

 else, and then hire out to him as an assist- 

 ant. He would be relieving himself of a 

 lot of worry, and have his investment free 

 for something else. 



But how is the beekeeper to know whelli- 

 er his bee-poultry or bee-fruit or bee-farm- 

 ing combination is profitable, or whether hi.s 

 bee business alone pays anything more than 

 wages"? He can detei'mine this only by 

 keeping a set of accounts for his bees alone. 

 He must carefully record every expenditure 

 for hives or supplies and every cent he re- 

 ceives from a sale. He should rate his own 

 labor at, say, twenty cents an hour if he is 

 an amateur, and more if an expert. Then 

 at the end of the year he will be in a posi- 

 tion to know just how his bee business 

 stands. 



After the expenditures and labor accounl 

 are deducted, if the figures show a large 

 profit he will be wise in increasing the 

 number of his colonies and the extent of 



