THK AMKRICAN 



Apiculturist. 



VOL. IX. 



A Journal Devoted, to F*ractical BeeVceeping. 



FEBRUARY, 1891. 



NO. 2. 



now TO MAKE A SUCCESSFUL BEE- 

 KEKPEll. 



The Api does indeed come up briglit 

 and rosy, and has a warming and cheer- 

 ing influence upon a fellow who is often 

 interviewing his thermometer and finds 

 it registering twelve degrees below zero. 

 And after reading it carefully through 

 in our cosy studv, ads. and all (we al- 

 ways read the ads.), we've got to say 



something or h do the other thing, 



talk about success. 



During our experience in the keep- 

 ing of bees for ])rofit, we have seen so 

 many failures, that our reflections this 

 morning run into the above theme, and 

 as we enter the new year, a thorough 

 self examination leads us to the exam- 

 ination of our own foilnres, and we 

 trace our own and much in the failure 

 of others to one source, which may be 

 expressed by one word, application. 



There is probably no business that 

 requires closer application to make it a 

 success than bee culture. 



And at first view there is no business 

 which seems so well adapted to take 

 care of itself. Theory says here is your 

 hive of bees, set it down in the garden 

 among the posies, put on the boxes in 

 the spring, and in the fall take them off 

 well filled with honey. Practice and 

 theory may agree with one swarm, but 

 when the apiary grows to one or more 

 hundred swarms, theory and practice 

 grow more and more divergent and the 

 theory that works well with one, will 

 destroy the hundred. We have many 

 times seen both old and young people 

 read a book upon bee culture and then 

 gaily waltz right into the business just 

 as confident of a golden success, as 

 though the book was equal to the lamp 

 of Aladdin and all they had to do, to rub 

 the leaves and take in the treasures. 



Now it is no secret but it seems to 

 be hard to learn that success in any 

 business is a thorough application to 

 that business, and according to oiir view 

 intense application must be applied to 

 bee culture to make a thorough success 

 of it. 



How many pages have been written 

 advocating some other occupation to be 

 conducted with beekeeping, and poul- 

 try and fruit-culture have probably re- 

 ceived the majority of endorsements. 

 But we guarantee that a person who has 

 been conduating the several occupations 

 at once will bear witness that he has 

 not attained the success in any of them 

 that he would have attained with a close 

 enthusiastic application to any one of 

 them. Beekeeping has so long been 

 wedded to farming which is a mixed 

 industry, and by the way much more 

 mixed than it should be, that it seems a 

 task to break the bonds and stand it out 

 as a distinct pursuit. 



Not long since a young man who had 

 been educated a beekeeper, and intend- 

 ed to make it a life business, was asked 

 why he did not work in such and such 

 pursuits with it. Oh ! said he, I sup- 

 l)ose I could, but I do not wish to take 

 up any permanent line of work thart will 

 take my study and enthusiasm from bee 

 culture. No\v if success is possible, that 

 young man will attain it, while the young 

 man who gives two thoughts to bee cul- 

 ture, two to poultry, several to fruit and 

 the rest to a fast horse and stylish road 

 cart, will not attain success in any of 

 them. 



Another very important element 

 which is generally lacking in the afore- 

 said theory and Aladdin class is pa- 

 tience. A short crop or no surplus at 

 all, or a severe winter loss, or foul brood, 

 or some of the other many ills that come 



