238 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' RE VIE A. 



Mistakes of Bee -Papers and Bee-Journals,— 

 Allen Pringle, Selby, Ont. 



How bee-keepers mighr. receive more benefit 

 from the Experiment Stations,— R. L. Taylor, 

 Lapeer, Mich. 



Wtio shall winter bees out of doors, who in the 

 cellar?— F A.(iemmill, Stratford, Ont. 



What is indicated by color in Italian Beos?— 

 .J. P. H Brown, Augusta, Georgia. 



The Proper Size of a Brood Nest and how it 

 Shall be decided.— Jas. Heddon, Dowagiac, Mich. 



The Surest and liest way of Raising a Oop of 

 Comb Honey,— B. Taylor, Forestville, Minn. 



S(mie Things of Interest to Bee-Koepers,— G. 

 M. Doolittle, Borodino, N. Y. 



Legislation for Boe-Keepers,— R. McKnight, 

 Owen Sound, Ont. 



eXXRTXOXED. 



Shall Bee - Keeping be a Specialty or a 

 Side- Issue 1 



Some of my readers may be thiukiug of 

 making a specialty of bee-keepiug, aud oth- 

 ers who are uow specialists may be thinking 

 of taking up some other business aud mak- 

 iug a side-issue of bee-keeping. For the 

 consideration of these two classes I publish 

 the following from Mr. Heddon's Quarterly. 



" In April 2.")th A. B. J., Rev. Abbott is on 

 a still hunt for the bee-keeping specialist. 

 In his talk on page 270 he gives honey pro- 

 ducing the black eye of not being able to 

 stand alone. He says : ' If there is a sin- 

 gle man, woman or child in the country, 

 with no other source of income, let him, her 

 or it come to the front aud explain how it is 

 done.' He adds : ' I kuow how it is done 

 by many who claim to be specialists. One 

 has a newspaper, another has a farm, anoth- 

 er lias a government job, etc' All of this is 

 to tlie point of showing that honey produc- 

 tion cannot be made a paying busiuess if 

 followed as a sole occupation. Will Mr. Ab- 

 bott please to explain, then, how in the name 

 of common sense it can be made to pay as a 

 side-issue V All the arguments we have ever 

 heard in that line, failed to meet our reason. 

 Side issues uever pay ; they are only sup- 

 posed to because they are run in such a way 

 that while their incomes are fully realized, 

 their costs are never kept track of. We are 

 attracted to them because of the tendency to 

 seek diversion in variety in busiuess. We 

 get tired of the old, aud instead of industri- 

 ously sticking to our adopted aud most prof- 

 itable Hue, we turn aside and go farther 

 around to ' get there.' 



But dear Bro. Abbott, what is meant by 

 the word 'specialist':" We deline it this 

 way : A man is a special honey producer if 

 he makes that his leadiwj or ' spe(!ial ' busi- 

 ness. Neither McGormick, Oliver nor Stu- 

 dehaker can say that they do not deal in 

 real estate, and that reaper, plow aud wagon 

 making is the only source of income. But 



where did they get their capital with which 

 to buy real estate ? We are the ' newspaper' 

 fellow, no doubt, to whom Bro. Abbott al- 

 ludes. We are also a supply dealer ; why 

 have we these damaging attachments ? How 

 did we come to make the mistake of attach- 

 ing these expensive side issues ? Let us tell 

 you and give you an estimate of what they 

 have cost us. Twenty six years ago we be- 

 gan bee-keeping with a small fruit attach- 

 ment. We very quickly learned the mistake 

 of this attachment, and we dropped it. With 

 this clog removed we made money faster 

 with every moment of our time devoted to 

 honey production than at any other time of 

 our life, volume considered. Next came a 

 little supply dealing which we have never 

 boomed and hardly encouraged ; it came 

 about in this way : In our honey producing, 

 we discovered what we thought, yes what we 

 knew to be valuable methods and devices. 

 The human instinct to let our light shine, 

 caused us to write for bee journals, describ- 

 ing methods and implements which we 

 thought to be new and original. Readers 

 seemed to think so, and began writing us for 

 hives, etc. This is the way our supi)ly trade 

 began ; wholly unsolicited, and not until the 

 fourth year did we issue a circular which was 

 done as an economy rather than to increase 

 our supply trade. 



Now about the newspaper : We had made 

 the net profits of our apiary buy another. 

 We had made the two buy a third cue. and 

 made the three put a surplus of cash in the 

 bank. We had thought seriously of the 

 fourth, our ardor being checked by the com- 

 plication of swarming. Had we put this 

 bank honey money a", interest, Bro. Abbott 

 might have called us a specialist, but that 

 we put it in a newspaper which for two years 

 we had to bolster up with the profits from 

 our apiaries, Mr. Abbott presupposes we are 

 not a specialist. We started this Quarterly 

 with honey money, and now, like that of our 

 newspaper, being self-supporting, are we not 

 a specialist ? Honey producing pays us the 

 best of any business we have or ever had. It 

 is the parent of all the others, and in the 

 matter of profit, is still ' king bee.' Having 

 shown that honey producing alone, with us 

 has been sufficiently profitable to buy other 

 lines of business, and after dividing our 

 thought with these other liups. is still profit- 

 able, is it not clear that, rightly managed, it 

 is a good business and would have been still 

 more profitable with us had we concentrated 

 our thoughts entirely upon it ? We know 

 and we think Mr. Abbott can see, that our 

 experience (newspaper and all) is evidence 

 of the profits of specialty in bee-keeping, 

 and that we made the mistake of a lifetime 

 iti attaching side issues to our specialty. 

 We find we have made our life work harder 

 and less profitable by so doing. Mr. Abbott 

 needn't think that our newspaper is needed 

 as a source of our income. We iiave another 

 and better one than that, and that is our 

 patent. Of course we are selling out our 

 capital stock aud tlic tinifi is drawing near 

 when that will all be sold. I5ut that has 

 nothing to do with the fact tiuit iioney pro- 

 ducing can, at the present time, be made to 



