92 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER, 



June 



invest a lot of money in procuring a 

 lot of bees, thinking the expense is all 

 over, at least the bulk of it, and they 

 start out knowing but very little more 

 about apiculture than a cow knows 

 how to skate. Well, they start out, 

 we will say with $100 worth of bees. 

 They begin to scratch their heads, try- 

 ing to find out what course to pursue. 

 He finds out that a smoker will have 

 to be had, an extractor, honey knife 

 and a dozen and one different things. 

 Not knowing how to use the honey 

 knife and extractor, will most surely 

 make a bungling job of it. I might 

 just state here, once I sold a man an 

 extractor and knife and he went home 

 thinking to make lots of money in ex- 

 tracting honey ; but in a few days he 

 came back with them and said he 

 would not have the things; he said 

 the honey would stick to the knife 

 and tear the combs, and the extractor 

 would jump all over the house. Now, 

 I said to him, " you just take them 

 back home and keep the uncapping 

 knife in hot water when you are not 

 uncapping, your knife will be always 

 warm." He condemned the extractor 

 for that. 



Very often a farmer tries to keep 

 bees. The worst with farming and 

 bee-keeping is that nine times out of 

 ten the bees* are neglected, they will 

 not pay expenses. They forget that 

 in order to make bee-keeping a suc- 

 cess they should have as much care or 

 more than a crop of corn or potatoes. 



Then what little honey some of 

 these careless bee-keepers get, they 

 put on the market in such a poor 

 shape that they get a small price 

 for it and often cannot sell it at all. 

 Comb honey stays on the hive so long 

 that it gets travel-stained and 



their extracted honey very often taken 

 to market in a candied form which 

 makes it realy worse^than it is ; then 

 these same men seldom grade their 

 section honey and don't scrape the 

 propolis. These are men that con- 

 demn the honey industry. 



Some men have so much other work 

 to do they cannot or will not control 

 the swarming, thus adding expense for 

 hives and getting little or no money, 

 because we notice that when there is a 

 good honey season the bees will swarm 

 more than they will in a poor season. 

 So you will see that the man who has 

 too many irons in the fire lets the bee 

 industry iron burn. In that case ap- 

 iculture don't pay. 



I would say in conclusion those 

 that are looking for a livlihood with 

 lots of money in it, with little or no 

 work, don't start keeping bees. If 

 you do you will be sure to fail, and 

 perhaps be many dollars out. Of 

 course we are aware that some men 

 will make failure of any industry 

 they take up. What will bring suc- 

 cess is an eye open to business, and 

 keeping constantly at it brings suc- 

 cess. 



DECORATING SECTIONS OF HONEY. 



The finer grades of comb honej 7 

 will perhaps always remain a luxury, 

 and how to produce this article in the 

 most attractive form has alwaj's been 

 a constant study with our most pro- 

 gressive producers. Most of us rec- 

 ognize the fact, that it is the beauti- 

 ful appearance of a section of hone}^ 

 more that anything else, that helps to 

 sell it, and although we produce it for 

 our own use, or to give to our friends, 

 it is a great satisfaction to have it 

 just as attractive as can be. 



