338 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



December 



his next bargain, and I did. He was 

 so good and honest, you know. He 

 told me many things and substantiated 

 his assertions, but my bees all died 

 the next winter, excepting one colony 

 in a box hive that I thought I would 

 keep that way and see if it would out- 

 live those in the new-fangled ones. 

 That ought to have taught me some- 

 thing but it did not seem to convince 

 me, and I played the rattle box with 

 patent hives for the next few years 

 with about the same results as describ- 

 ed above. It would make you tired 

 even to hear me describe my trials, 

 hopes and fears each and every time, 

 but ending only in disappointment 

 and loss. But has all that I have 

 passed through been for naught ? Be- 

 cause I was built in such a way that I 

 would go to the bottom of facts do you 

 suppose that I would not bring back 

 something? 



Well, the end of the patent hive 

 business came at last and I piled up 

 all of my patent fixings on less than 

 an acre of ground, where I kept them 

 for many years as a monument to re- 

 mind me of something, and as a warn- 

 ing to patent men, all of whom kept 

 clear, excepting one, Avho got roiled 

 when I led him up to them. 



I had bought bees for twenty miles 

 around me but still I found more and 

 bought me another apiary of box 

 hives. This time I kept them, and 

 that is the way I came to know about 

 box hives for breeders. Some of the 

 hives had stood for twenty years with 

 bees in them. These were twenty- 

 seven inches tall. The first year I had 

 them I loosened the covers, killed the 

 bees, sawed through the front board 

 about six inches from the top, ran the 

 saw in and cut the honey loose and 



took it out at the top every time they 

 would build it up. In those days such 

 honey sold for twenty cents per pound 

 and I took as high as 110 pounds 

 from one hive, making S22.00, besides 

 a new swarm which it cast. This was 

 a crude way, and I would not do it 

 now, because I can make more by 

 keeping them as breeders, as described 

 in my previous articles. But my suc- 

 cess commenced then and I have been 

 looking back with a smile at the old 

 times. 

 Ovid, Pa. 



The Economic Value of Bees 

 and their Products. 



Read at 27th Annual Convention of the N. A. Bee 

 Keepers' Association. 



The discussion of the above subject 

 may be made to embrace such an im- 

 mense scope that it would be useless 

 to try to point out more than a few of 

 the leading questions involved in it. 

 Being adverse to long essays myself, 

 knowing also, by past experience, that 

 essays, in a meeting like this, are only 

 needed to introduce the subject, I will 

 make my remarks short. 



In the consideration of this question 

 I would prefer to have had the bees 

 left out, by the committee who ascrib- 

 ed the subject to me, for I confess 

 that I cannot see any actual, direct 

 economic value in the bees themselves, 

 but only indirectly, through their 

 products of honey and beeswax, and 

 still more indirectly through their ac- 

 tions as pollen carriers, upon the 

 bloom of our domestic trees, plants 

 and shrubs to help fertilization and 

 thereby increase the yield of our farms, 

 orchards and gai-dens. The discussion 

 of this it seems to me should come un- 

 der a different head. 



