576 



What Business to Connect with Bee-Keeping. 



D. D. Palmer. I have tried fruit- 

 raising quite successfully. In getting 

 surplus honey, in some neighborhoods, 

 there will be none in the spring ; in oth- 

 ers, none in the summer or fall. I have 

 found that a good crop of raspberries 

 came very handy to sell when white clo- 

 ver fails, as it did this year. Fruit rais- 

 ing fills in these gaps. 



Will. M. Kellogg. I would also add 

 vegetables and poultry. 



Jas. A. Simpson. The best thing a 

 man can do at such times is to run for 

 office, it will enliven his ideas and send 

 him back to his bees more contentedly. 

 Very many have good crops th is year; 

 I had a good crop of grapes, but they 

 did not take the place of honey. 



E. D. Godfrey. I would keep a good 

 lot of bees, but not depend on them for 

 a living. I aim to follow a business 

 aside from bee-keeping to make my 

 living. 



D. D. Palmer. I have not made 

 enough to square up accounts on my 

 place, aside from my bees, and my other 

 business has not paid well either. 



E. D. Godfrey. Do you not think you 

 have too many* bees (over 200 colonies) V 



D. D. Palmer. No ; I do not. 



E. D. Godfrey. It is a question not 

 easily answered. A man must follow 

 that business which he is most capable 

 tor. 



L. II. Scudder. I can see great trou- 

 ble in this. Mr. Palmer is depending 

 mainly on his bees ; in case his bees fail 

 him he has no other business that will 

 supply that loss. 



E. D. Godfrey. Get a business that 

 will furnish a support, and run bees as 

 an extra. 



John Hoover. I would advise the 

 keeping of sheep, which can be done 

 easily in many places. 



Mr. Holcomb. Our family has been 

 in the habit of keeping sheep and bees, 

 and we find it works well. I think they 

 can be run together very well. 



L. H. Scudder. If a man has extra 

 land for stock to run on, he can keep 

 bees and stock too. We keep stock, but 

 have other land than our own for it to 

 run on. 



Is there Danger of Over-Stocking T 



Jas. A. Simpson. I firmly believe 

 there is. I think if I had had many less 

 this season I would have done better. 

 I know a man who last spring had a 

 barrel of bees. They stored about 16 lbs. 

 of honey, and built the comb, too, and 

 had no better chance than mine. I 

 have known also where only a few colo- 

 nies were kept, they done much better 

 than mine. Such a'season as this does 



not often occur. I have known seasons 

 when the country could not be over- 

 stocked with bees. I think 40 colonies 

 in the spring is plenty to begin with. 



D. D. Palmer. How can we tell when 

 we are going to have too many bees for 

 a season ? 



Jas. A. Simpson. By watching the 

 way in which the bees are succeeding. 



D. D. Palmer. We can test it by 

 watching how our bees build comb in 

 contrast toa smaller number of colonies; 

 if they do better, we can conclude we 

 are over- stocked. 



Will. M. Kellogg. That will do, if the 

 bees are all under one management. 

 One man may get more honey than an- 

 other by his better management, and 

 the strain of bees has a great deal to do 

 with it. 



L. H. Scudder. But this year one or 

 two colonies, in isolated places, done no 

 better than large lots. 



D. D. Palmer. In South America 

 several thousand colonies are kept in 

 one locality. If they could run so many 

 were they over-stocked V 



E.D.Godfrey. Yes; they run them- 

 selves out. We hear no more of them. 



John Hoover. Is there not much dif- 

 ference in the kind of bees kept V I do 

 not think we obtained any section honey 

 this year except from hybrids. 



Much discussion was had pro and con 

 in regard to sending delegates to Europe 

 to instruct their people to keep bees in 

 a better way, thereby causing them to 

 produce more honey to compete with 

 our own honey. Some were opposed to 

 such a course, saying it would injure our 

 foreign honey markets ; others favored 

 it, claiming it would increase our sales, 

 as the more honey was advertised the 

 more it would be bought. 



Extracting Honey after the Season is over. 



E. D. Godfrey. I know one man who 

 has extracted from his bees since the 

 season was over, and I think he will wish 

 he had not before spring comes. 



Jas. A. Simpson. I extracted from 

 the top stories of 5 colonies, the frames 

 below were full of brood, the honey- flow 

 ceased, and I soon had 3 dead colonies, 

 and this, too, when all conditions were 

 favorable. 



Will. M. Kellogg. Mr. Simpson's case 

 does not apply here at all. I have al- 

 ways made it a practice to extract from 

 my bees after the season was over, and 

 never had any bad results follow but 

 once ; that time I returned the empty 

 combs in the fall ; the bees bred very 

 early in the empty combs, which were 

 sticky with honey, and came out of the 

 cellar boiling over with bees ; wet wea- 

 ther kept them from the spring bloom, 



