1!)Q1 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



199 



intimates that J. Pierpont Morgan 

 might as well have been a wealthy 

 man to-day had he only held aloof 

 trom dabbling in such small things 

 as bonds, railroads, steel etc., and 

 embarked instead in the bee busi- 

 ness. 



There can be no doubt that the 

 glowing pictures sometimes painted 

 of bee culture and its profits are 

 open to criticism. The beginner — 

 especially the youthful beginner — 

 may in this way be led to expect 

 too much; yet, with reference to 

 question in hand, we think no bee- 

 keeper of experience would be in- 

 clined to regard $5.00 per colony 

 as big returns. It should always 

 be borne in mind that any business 

 enterprise is subject to adverse con- 

 ditions and casualties. Then, there 

 is the limit of one's personal capa- 

 bilities to be taken into considera- 

 tion. One apiarist cannot prop- 

 erly attend to several apiaries; ex- 

 pense increases in proportion with 

 the stock; forage must also be 

 afforded in equal ratio. One colony 

 might easily produce one hundred 

 pounds of comb honey. This might 

 readily find a market at $16.00; 

 though one does not often hear of 

 an apiary of one hundred colonies 

 yielding ten thousand pounds of 

 honey, and that selling for $1,600. 

 We do not think it has occurred in 

 recent years that any apiaries of 

 one thousand colonies have yielded 

 sixteen thousand dollar's worth of 

 honey in one season, for reasons in- 

 timated above. 



There is no doubt that Mr. Her- 

 man, as fully as his critics, under- 

 stands and appreciates these facts, 

 and there is no doubt that he would 

 have sought to qualify this particu- 

 lar sentence had he anticipated the 

 inclination of any one to advance 

 the stock of the Joseph Dixon Cru- 

 cible Company through his con- 

 sumption of lead pencils in extend- 



ing the appplication ad vi^nitum. 



Prof. Cook, in his "Manual of 

 the Apiary" says: "An intelligent 

 apiarist may invest in bees any 

 Spring, in Michigan, with an abso- 

 lute certainty of more than doubling 

 his investment the first season; 

 while a net gain of 400 per cent, 

 brings no surprise to the. experi- 

 enced apiarists of our State. This, 

 of course, applies to only a limited 

 number of colonies. Nor is Michi- 

 gan superior to other States as a 

 location for the apiarist." In these 

 days of gigantic enterprises, the 

 professor's qualifying clause is next 

 to insignificant, for even the opera- 

 tions of Morgan are "limited." 

 Hence, it would be no less consist- 

 ent to suppose that one might with 

 absolute certainty invest one thou- 

 sand dollars in bees in Michigan 

 or "other States" next Spring, 

 and each Spring thereafter for ten 

 years, invest the minimum limit of 

 his apiarian funds in bees, thus 

 giving him an income of a million 

 for the tenth year, "to say nothing 

 of" $24,000 in "loose change." 



It is highly improbable that any 

 man has ever realized from his bees 

 in one season a sum of money ap- 

 proaching the amount of this "loose 

 change" which, according to the 

 JoitrnaVs system of overhauling a 

 chain, any intelligent person might 

 be led to regard as a failure, if he 

 should base his project upon so 

 careful a writer as Cook. 



"There is reason in all things but 

 one," used to be a favorite saying 

 of a venerable associate of our boy- 

 hood days. The "one" exception 

 was a great mystery. 



All human history attests 



That happiness for man — the hungry 



sinner — ■ 

 Since Eve ate apples, must depend on 



dinner. — Byron. 



