130 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



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At Borodino, New York 



SUCCESSFUL BEEKEEPING 



"I am a man with limited means, and 

 must do something to make a Uving for 

 myself and family. I have fallen violently 

 in love with bees, and have ten colonies. 

 I have been wondering whether 1 could not 

 build up in the bee business till 1 could 

 make enough of a success of it so that I 

 could spend my whole time caring for the 

 bees, and thus be doing something that I 

 like. Therefore I take the liberty of ask- 

 ing you to say someting along this line in 

 Gleanings." 



"The one thing in your favor is your love 

 for the bees. Occasionally one may be suc- 

 cessful when going into a business which 

 he is not in love with, simply because he 

 enters into it for the money he hopes to 

 make out of it: but this is the exception 

 rather than the rule. Except to the man 

 who has missed his calling, there is real fun 

 and play in all of the energy put into that 

 pursuit which one has chosen. I have 

 known people to be so engaged in their pur- 

 suit, and to love it so well, that the most 

 exciting ball game was more tame to them 

 than the same time spent wielding the hoe 

 in some favorite field of potatoes. Scores 

 of others exert themselves in playing 

 ball throughout some sultry afternoon, call- 

 ing it the height of fun, thereby wholly un- 

 fitting themselves for the next day's work 

 in the field, doing scarcely half of an aver- 

 age day's work, and considering what they 

 did do as only drudgery. It would be 

 easy to prophesy that "successful potato 

 culture" will not be written opposite the 

 name on the score of such at the end of 

 life's journey. Therefore, this axiom can 

 be laid down: ' To be successful in any call- 

 ing in life, the one entering it must have a 

 love for that calling.' 



"Notwithstanding this axiom, it must be 

 further said that, from the calling chosen, 

 at least enough must be derived to support 

 the one working at it and his family. Oth- 

 erwise, there must sooner or later come a 

 turning from that calling unless financial 

 aid comes from some other source. I re- 

 member a well-to-do man who went into 

 beekeeping for the love or pleasure there 

 was in it, using this same beekeeping as a 

 side issue as he called it. A year or two 

 later he was telling of the added profit that 

 came to him from the bees. I remarked 

 that I understood he was in the business 

 for the pleasure there was in it. ' Right you 

 are,' he said: 'but the greater the profit, the 

 greater the pleasure.' 



"I must confess, as I look over' my forty- 

 two years of life as a beekeeper, that, while 

 there has been a rare pleasure in the work 

 (Mrs. Doolittle has often said, after calling 

 me again and again, that I think more of 

 the bees than I do of my dinner), that my 

 main object has been to gain a livelihood 

 and to secure money for the comforts and 



pleasures of life. And while I have taken 

 great pleasure in my bees all of these years, 

 and from this life in the open has resulted 

 the robust health that can not be gotten in 

 any business requiring indoor employment, 

 yet neither pleasure nor good health would 

 have kept me faithful to beekeeping had 

 there not come from it a good living, and 

 something besides for ' a rainy day. ' And I 

 am as free to say that I consider it doubtful 

 whether any beekeeper will ever reach the 

 financial stature of a Morgan, Vanderbilt, 

 or Gould; yet if rightly followed, and with 

 a love that will keep one at it through sea- 

 sons of failure in nectar secretion as well as 

 in prosperous seasons, apiculture will prove 

 as remunerative as almost any other branch 

 of agriculture. But without the necessary 

 love for the bees the \)00t seasons, as we call 

 them, when the 'heavens seem as brass' 

 throughout the time of all nectar-yielding 

 flora, discouragement is sure to come, the 

 business to be neglected, and blasted hopes 

 and failure are the outcome. Thus it is 

 that this love part in any business is the 

 anchor w^hich holds through storms, and 

 makes success certain when the 'clouds 

 roll away.' 



"And the chances of success everi/ year 

 are much better in these days of compara- 

 tive swarm control, trolley lines, and auto- 

 mobiles, than when we older ones started. 

 It is a rare thing that an entire failure of 

 nectar happens over a large area of country; 

 and very many times when there has been 

 a partial or nearly entire failure in the se- 

 cretion of nectar at the home apiary, I have 

 secured at least a fair yield from the out- 

 apiary five miles away, or vice versa. 



"Now, if it happens that your environ- 

 ment keeps you in a location not blessed 

 with the desired nectar-producing flora, if 

 you are near a trolley line you can locate 

 out-apiaries along this line as fast as your 

 bees increase sufficiently to warrant it. Or 

 if you can afford an automobile, these out- 

 apiaries may be located in any place of 

 abundant nectar-secreting flora, and thus 

 the chances of success be far better than 

 in the slow days of forty or fifty years ago. 

 I can hardly realize the possibilities that 

 are before the young, energetic man of to- 

 day, who, with a love for the pursuit, goes 

 into beekeeping." 



The Double-walled Hive Better Even for the South 



I have kept bees in three of the Northern States, 

 namely, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana, and 

 have found the double-walled hive the best for cold 

 weather. 1 have proved it to my own satisfaction 

 again and again. I am now In Southern Alabama, 

 and I find again that the double-walled hive, when 

 well ventilated, is also the best for hot weather. 

 The air-space gives an even temperature so that no 

 combs are lost by the heat, and the bees do not re- 

 main on the outside of the hive on hot days. 



Magnolia Springs, Ala. E. Deusenberrv. 



