AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



383 



quit brood-rearing. At least that has 

 been my experience with single-comb 

 nuclei. 



Another thing to which I object, is the 

 placing of the three-banded bees ahead 

 of the four or five banded. If it is the 

 yellow bands that mark them as the 

 yellow race, the greater the number of 

 bands, the greater the perfection in this 

 direction. While my own personal 

 preference might be for the darker 

 strains of Italians, there are so many 

 good men who favor the lighter varie- 

 ties, that I hardly feel like saying in a 

 Code of Rules that the Premiums shall 

 be given to the " leathef'backs." I must 

 say, however, that I have little faith in 

 judging of bees by looking at them at 

 Fairs. 



Flint, Mich., March 9, 1892. 



Apiarian Know leip anl Experience. 



.J. W. TEFFT. 



Men who would not expect for a 

 moment to ask advice of a lawyer or a 

 physician without paying for it, seem to 

 forget that the same law should hold 

 good in expert bee-keeping affairs. 



Apiarists and men who are about to 

 invest money in bee-keeping, or are 

 already in it, will walk into the home of 

 some expert bee-keeper, and ask ques- 

 tions, get and examine plans, and even 

 drawings of some mechanical inventions, 

 or seek advice that none but an educated 

 bee-keeper would be competent to give, 

 without thinking of paying for the ser- 

 vice rendered. 



The bee-keeper who has graduated 

 from the ABC class in bee-culture, 

 spends more money and time to get his 

 education that does the lawyer or doc- 

 tor. If a competent bee-keeper were 

 consulted before or after the apiary or 

 device was started by the amateur, there 

 would be fewer failures and disappoint- 

 ments, and it would be a good invest- 

 ment to pay well for such services in 

 any case. Men who want to use the 

 brain and training of these competent 

 bee-keepers without pay, would resent 

 an impeachment of " sponging" on any- 

 body, yet to the expert, making his 

 bread and butter by using his brains and 

 training, they are very despicable dead- 

 beats. 



There is another class of men, or a 

 few of the same class, who seem to 

 think that bee-periodicals exist for no 

 other purpose than to do their expert 

 thinking for them. They will ask 



questions in bee-keaping that any fair 

 bee-keeper in their place could answer 

 in a few minutes. They want you to 

 design a frame, a honey-board and sec- 

 tion, and want to know how to manage 

 bees for certain work, for a dozen differ- 

 ent purposes, each stating many local 

 peculiarities that materially affect the 

 case ; and whose sound judgment is 

 necessary to insure success. 



One of this class wrote not long ago, 

 asking for the required sizes of frames, 

 brood-chambers, and honey apartments 

 necessary to keep bees from swarming, 

 and how much more honey could be pro- 

 duced by a non-swarming, wing-clipped 

 queen, etc. Now, I do know barely 

 enough about bees to get along, but 

 what I know about hives is limited — 

 something like my correspondent's in- 

 formation on the same subject. 



I wrote him that if I were in his place, 

 I should employ a competent man to 

 work out the problems, and offered to 

 recommend a mechanical bee-engineer, 

 if he knew of none. I received a postal 

 card reply as follows, verbatim : 



" The reeson you don'4/ answer wright 

 is becoss you don't know. You bee 

 writers aint so smart as you pertend." 



The information covered by the last 

 sentence of the rebuke, came as a great 

 shock to me. But after calmly thinking 

 it over, I decided not to commit suicide, 

 but to struggle along as I had before, 

 without knowing everything. 



There is another class who advertise 

 for help in an apiary, that want much 

 for nothing. I answered one, giving 

 experience, hives I have used, age, 

 recommendations, etc. The reply I re- 

 ceived is as follows : 



" Deak Sir : — Yours is received. We 

 smiled when we read your age. In brief, 

 we will say, you won't do — won't ' fill the 

 bill.' Too old. We want a man to 

 work the farm, and do all kinds of labor, 

 and had some liking for bees." 



I wish to say to those who want some- 

 thing for nothing, that out of every $10 

 paid to a competent bee-man, $1 is for 

 what he does — the other $9 is for what 

 he knows. It is knowledge that costs, 

 and that is vahiable ! The number of 

 hours labor is of minor importance. 

 Where salaries go into the five figures, 

 " knowing how," is what such salaries 

 are paid for — and how few there are who 

 have the natural ability to learn how ; 

 and he who tries to solve the problems 

 in bee-keeping, will find that it takes a 

 little longer than a lifetime. 



This is an age of specialists. Each 

 man can learn to be an expert in one 



