1907-] 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



ECONOMICS OF APICULTURE. 



251 



ARTHUR C. MILLER. 



THE ECONOMICS of apiculture 

 seem to have received scant 

 attention in the bee press, why, 

 it would be hard to tell. That such 

 a subject needs careful consideration 

 is forcibly impresed upon one as he 

 visits apiarists in various sections. 

 All too often there is a woeful lack 

 of proper equipment, necessitating in- 

 creased labor with its resultant cost. 

 Or when a fair equipment is found, 

 it is seldom that it is supplemented 

 by economic management. The mat- 

 ter of equipment and operation is of 

 more concern to persons already es- 

 tablished in the business of honey 

 production than to the novice and 

 "little fellows," the faddists who fat- 

 ten the pockets of the supply men 

 and make so much trouble for the 

 rest of us. 



Changes in equipment have so often 

 been urged by manufacturing inter- 

 ests and the advice when followed 

 has so often been disastrous that 

 honey producers today look askance 

 at anything which savors of change. 

 But there are changes and changes, 

 and the change which you may make 

 after careful deliberation may not add 

 anything to the supply man's cofTers, 

 though helping to fill your own. 



Changes in management are freely 

 urged by every penny-a-liner, and 

 when the latter's advice helps the sale 

 of some contraption he is endorsed 

 and glorified as an ''authority," and 

 there are several such who have been 

 "made" by the supply interests. Nat- 

 urally the producers are getting skep- 

 tical. Confronted by these conditions 

 it would 'be hazardous to ofifer specific 

 advice as to the kind of equipment 

 a man should have or the system he 

 should pursue, hence I will content 

 myself with pointing out some of the 

 troubles as I have seen them. 



Without exception the hives in use 

 are ruinously expensive — -in labor. 

 Even with the most approved man- 

 agement there is an enormous amount 

 of lifting and shifting, all costing in 

 labor, today the most expensive item 

 of life. And when the hive is of the 

 much-patented, many-pieced contriv- 

 ances, run on the spring-stimulation, 



broad-shifting and multifarious tin- 

 kering plan, the kind which furnishes 

 much material for space filling in the 

 papers, the labor item is beyond be- 

 lief. Fortunate it is for the followers 

 of such methods that they do not 

 have to pay in cash and by the hour 

 for the labor involved. And yet they 

 generally do pay manifold, but in such 

 indirect ways that they seldom realize 

 the cost. 



Just what sort of a hive will be 

 the rnost economical, or how those 

 |now in use imay Ibe modified, are 

 questions which will not be answer- 

 ed oflf hand, and probably the answer 

 will corne only after much careful in- 

 vestigation by many practical men. 

 I know of a few men who have been 

 quietly working at the problem for 

 several years and from diametrically 

 opposite ways. One is working with 

 a low-priced one-story hive, virtually 

 the Adair Long Idea hive, the other 

 with a hive whose greatest dimension 

 is vertically and whose first cost 

 would stagger the average bee-keeper. 

 Both men are seeking ways to save 

 labor, to cut down cost of produc- 

 tion. The first cost of the hive is 

 of minor importance if the hive will 

 enable one to so manage the bees 

 therein as to materially reduce the 

 amount of labor necessary to secure 

 a crop of honey. The average hive, 

 with a proper set of supers, costs, 

 say, $1.50, the annual interest on 

 which is nine cents. By doubling the 

 first cost, the annual fixed charge be- 

 comes only eighteen cents, but if it 

 halves the labor, the saving will be 

 many times eighteen cents. If the 

 apiarist figures his own time at the 

 price he would have to pay someone 

 else, as he should, he will be sur- 

 prised at the cost in labor of the 

 manipulation of a colony of bees for 

 one season. If he is in the honey- 

 producing business for what it will 

 nay, then he must cut down the labor 

 item, and if it can be done by modi- 

 fying or changing the hives, then 

 the sooner he finds it out the sooner 

 he will stop a leak in his finances. 

 If he can find no way to make a 

 profitable change in hives, he may 



