BEE KEEPERS. 439 



Mr. Hutchinson. I took thirty pounds to the colony last summer and some had 

 as high as eighty pounds, yet I should not like to support my family on bee keep- 

 ing alone. The work for bee keeping is of short duration, and so is molasses, but 

 each one pays well for the work put in. 



Secretary Daugherty. I am not prepared to give anything of an accurate state- 

 ment of profit so far as a special business. There is not so much of a bonanza as 

 our friend thinks. The question is : Shall we keep bees in connection with other 

 things, or seek something else. I have been keeping bees for several years, but 

 have not given my time wholly to it; I have had other things to interrupt. At 

 the same time I have watched closely, and I am satisfied that there is nothing we 

 can give our time to that is more profitable than bee keeping, if we have any other 

 pursuit with it. Some years the yield of honey has been enormous. My profits 

 one year was $35 a colony, and had thirty-two colonies. Five or six years ago 

 the price was high and the yield bountiful. Bee keeping pays, and pays well in 

 connection with other employments. 



Mr. Muth. If we expect bee keeping to support us we may be disappointed 

 sometimes. If we go to work and raise corn, wheat and fruit to support us they 

 will sometimes fail, and so it is with bee keeping. Some think it don't pay when 

 we have a failure. The farmer don't get rich in a year, neither does the bee 

 keeper. 



Mr. Kennedy. I have been on fifty acres of land, and trying to make a living 

 at several things. For the past fifteen years I have been raising bees. If we de- 

 pend wholly on bees I think it would be a bad job in this country. I am pleased 

 to have beeS with other things. I am engaged in the poultry business also. A 

 man can get a good living on fifty acres of land if he has as many bees as he can at- 

 tend to, as the attention comes at a time when it don't interfere with the poultry 

 business. There is no better way to raise large crops on a small piece of land than 

 to sow it down in Alsike clover. Bees never fail to work on the clover, and cattle 

 like it. I never kept any statistical account, but plod along and live as well as 

 my neighbors who have 200 to 300 acres of land. 



Mr. Bull. I never bought but three colonies in my life. I have universally 

 wintered my bees well, and have had but little expense in that direction. 



Mr. Leming. What amount of capital do you have invested in bees? 



Mr. Bull. The number of colonies I have are worth $1,000 or more. 



Mr. Davis. My friend says his stock is worth $1,000. Can you tell what the 

 average profit is in ten years, allowing an average of about six dollars to the col- 

 ony? 



3Ir. Muth. If he gets $5 worth of honey out of a stand, that is big profit. We 

 can not do as well out of corn and hogs. 



Mr. Davis. You say your bees are worth $1,000; if you put the same amount 

 of capital in land, you can not make half as much as you can oflP the bees. 



Mr. Cotton. The business is one that we can take on a small piece of ground. 

 There are many pursuits in life that we can use all our eflforts in. A man with a 

 small farm well stocked and a few bees here and there, can make a profit. A few 

 years ago I had eighteen colonies, and I made more profit than on my land. 



Mr. Anderson. More profit can be derived by using these vocations of life, 



