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GLEANINGS TN BEE CULTURE 



November, 1919 



OHIO TO FLORIDA AND BACK 



Possibilities and Impossibilities of 



Migratory Beekeeping. One Big 



Beekeeper's Experience 



By E. R. Root 



IF — what a 

 great, big, 



little word, so 

 full of contradic- 

 tions, possibili- 

 ties, and impos- 

 sibilities! There 

 are two kinds of 

 "ifs" — one that 

 leads on to suc- 

 cess, and the other that courts failure. But 

 the one that I have in mind is a veritable 

 will-o'-the-wisp — so fine, so beautiful, so 

 promising, so full of a glorious future that 

 knows no failure. There are a lot of good 

 "ifs" and bad "ifs" in beekeeping, but 

 none of them more alluring and I may say 

 illusive, than migrating from the South to 

 the North. It is an ever recurring daydream 

 of some professional beekeepers, especially 

 those who have bumped up against the hon- 

 ey failures and winter losses of the cold, 

 cold North. 



Let's, for the fun of the thing, consider 

 some of the possibilities of the migratory 

 "ifs" from the North to the South — possi- 

 bilities, mind you, because some of them 

 do not materialize. Bees working the year 

 round; the elimination of dead capital that 

 lies idle six months in the cellar or winter 

 packing-cases; three and four honey crops 

 a year; winter and spring losses eliminated; 

 no" spring dwindling; no expense for winter 

 cases and cellars; never a cent for sugar for 

 bees; winter stores of honey all safe; no 

 chilled brood; always summer; birds sing- 

 ing; the air ever laden with the perfume of 

 blossoms; always living in the glorious out- 

 doors for the beekeeper as well as the bees; 

 fishing and boating galore; health every 

 hour and blood tingling at every pore; last. 



Fig. 2. — The Summerfield bees ou the Bay at Toledo, 

 Ohio. 



but by no means least, barrels and barrels 

 of — what shall I say? Health. Sure. Hon- 

 ey? Perhaps. Get rich quick? Yes, perhaps. 



"Ah!" you say, "you have gone clear 

 daflfy, soared up into the seventh heaven." 

 I guess so. Say, dear reader, speaking seri- 

 ously, I should like to dwell in the seventh 

 heaven, even if it be only in a daydream, 

 once in a while. 



I will admit that I have for the time be- 

 ing painted a picture of migratory beekeep- 

 ing that is, probably, a little too rosy. It 



is, perhaps, not 

 too much to say 

 that there are 

 some beekeepers 

 in the country 

 who have been 

 partially suc- 

 cessful. None of 

 them, so far as I 

 know, have made 

 barrels of money; but every one of them 

 has secured barrels of fun, barrels of health, 

 and barrels of experience. There is some- 

 thing besides money or honey that helps to 

 make up this world 's goods. 



The A. I. Root Company has tried out mi- 

 gratory beekeejMng from Ohio to Florida, 

 and the first vear w^e had success. Bees se- 



Pig. 1.— -Another view of apiary shown in Fig. 2. 



cured a good crop of honey in the Southland, 

 and those very same bees and their increase 

 secured a good crop of honey in and about 

 Medina. If every year had been as success- 

 ful as the first, we should have come pretty 

 near making barrels of money. The next 

 year we just about broke even, hardly that. 

 The next year we were on the wrong side of 

 the ledger, and the next year worse yet. 

 Taking the whole four years of moving bees 

 back and forth from Ohio to Florida, about 

 all we got was barrels of experience, of the 

 kind that Josh Billings tells about, where 

 he said, "Experience is a good skule, but 

 the tuishun comes pritty hi. ' ' 



In order to make migratory beekeeping a 

 success, one must do the bigger part of the 

 work himself. A hired man can not have 

 the interest that one has in his own business, 

 and he is, therefore, not watching for leaks 

 as is the one who owns the bees and has 

 everything to lose and everything to gain. 



There are several men who have partially 

 succeeded, if not entirely so, in moving bees 

 from the North to the Southland, and then 

 back again. They have a -tually overcome 

 the problem of winter losses and spring 

 dwindling, converted the winter food into 

 bees in the Southland, caught a crop of 

 honey, and then, when the season was over 

 in the South, moved the bees in car lots to 

 the North, caught another crop of honey — 

 in short, succeeded in making it a business 

 venture worth while. But it ought to be 

 made very clear that the average beeman, 

 I don 't care whether he is a professional or 



