Feb. 27, 1902. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



133 



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Convention Proceedings. 



(Continued from paKe 120.) 



Report of the Colorado Bee-Keepers' Convention 

 held in Denver, Nov. 18, 19 and 20, 1901, 



BY D. W. WORKING, SEC Y. 



Advice to Beginners. 



As relates to bee-culture, tlic world of mankind is divided 

 into two distinct classes, between which the line of demarca- 

 tion is strongly and sharply drawn. One class possesses natural 

 qualifications that render its members capable of handling 

 bees with both pleasure and profit. The other class is so 

 constituted by nature that its members are foredoomed to 

 failure, and at best would achieve but an indifferent success 

 should they embark in the business of raising bees and 

 producing honey. Only a few people in each community 

 belong to the former class ; while in the latter class may 

 be reckoned the balance of the human family, comprising, 

 by inconceivable odds, the major fraction of the rnce. There 

 is no absolutely fixed rule by which these classes may be 

 differentiated, but there are a few guide-boards that help 

 to point the way toward probable success or failure. 



This was to be a paper of advice to beginners; but I 

 feel that it will be incomplete, and fail of its intended 

 mission, if it is not also a paper of advice to those who 

 ought not to begin. As the latter class far outnumbers 

 the former, I propose to dispose of it in advance, and 

 hang out a few aanger signals that no one of ordinary 

 comprehension can fail to interpret. 



It is a mistaken idea that bee-culture is a lazy man's 

 road to wealth and affluence. It requires hard study, hard 

 work, and unceasing activity the year around to be suc- 

 cessful. The same amount of capital, brains, and energy, 

 invested in any other occupation would yield as good or 

 better returns. If love of ease and the luxuries that gold 

 will buy are the overmastering passions of your life, do 

 not seek bee-culture as a means of gratifying them, as 

 failure all around would be the inevitable result. 



If you have other business that absorbs your time to 

 such an extent that you can not devote the time and 

 study to bee-culture necessary to conduct it along scientific 

 lines — in other words, if you can only make it a side-issue 

 — then most emphatically do I advise you to let it alone. 

 While bee-culture sometimes combines profitably with hor- 

 ticulture, poultry culture, and other rural or semi-rural pur- 

 suits, still I believe that specialism in any one of these occu- 

 pations will yield the best financial returns. 



Unless you can accustom yourself to being stung, it will 

 be useless for you to embark in the bee-business. It is 

 possible to put on a rigging that is sting-proof, but no 

 practical apiarist would think for a moment of working in 

 such toggery. Stings are unavoidably of daily occurrence 

 when working in the apiary ; at least that is my experience, 

 and one can become so accustomed to them as to become 

 almost immune from their effects. On the other hand, 

 a great many people suffer intolerably from even one sting. 

 To such, apiculture oft'ers very little inducement as an 

 occupation, no matter how dearly they may otherwise love 

 the work, or its results. 



To revert now to the advice to beginners, I wish to 

 preface what I may say under this heading by saying that 

 I do not pose as a sage, or lay claim to the wisdom 

 that will allow me to speak authoritatively upon any sub- 

 ject connected with bee-culture. I am only a beginner 

 myself, in the investigation and pursuit of scientific bee- 

 culture, and would much rather this subject had been 

 assigned to some one riper ifi judgment and older in exper- 

 ience. 



We will assume that our would-be beginner is naturally 

 qualified for the occupation of an apiarist and is desirous 

 of entering upon it as a life work. My first advice to you 

 would be to procure a good text-book on bee-culture and 

 subscribe at once for as many of the leading bee-journals 

 as the state of your exchequer will permit. Do this right 

 away, and study them until next spring. That will enable 

 you to master thoroughly the theory of modern bee-keeping, 



queen-rearing, grading and marketing honey, etc. What 

 you now lack is the practical experience, and that is, by 

 long odds, the biggest and hardest lesson you will have 

 to learn. The best way to gain this experience is to 

 apprentice yourself to sjine practical apiarist. Learn all 

 that he can teach you, and when competent lo manage 

 an apiary alone you can begin to think about embarking in 

 the business upon your own account. 



On the other hand, if you desire to enter into the busi- 

 ness at once for yourself, after having spent the winter in 

 study and preparation, at the beginning of spring purchase 

 not to exceed five or six colonies of bees. Be sure they are 

 Italian bees and that they are in movable-comb hives and 

 on standard HolTman-Langslroth frames. Read your books 

 and journals and manage your bees according to the direc- 

 tions they will give you. in all cases do all the work 

 yourself. Seek the advice, if you like, of older bee-keepers, 

 but do not employ them to do any of the work for you. 

 You need the experience, and you may be certain that you 

 can not get it vicariously, or in the sweat of some other 

 man's brow. Follow the beaten path that has led others 

 to success. When you have made a success along that line, 

 there will be time enough then for you to diverge in search 

 of other and better methods. 



Perhaps I should be more specific. I would advise you 

 to produce comb honey. This year and for several years 

 past extracted honey has ruled low in price, and the tend- 

 ency is for it to go still lower. Comb honey finds a readier 

 sale, is more profitable, and requires less work to produce. 

 I would recommend that you use the 8-frame hive with 

 the standard 24-pound super, using scalloped 4/4M/4 sec- 

 tions. Unless you are a good mechanic and have some 

 machine tools, it will hardly pay you to make your own 

 hives. Better buy them anyhow for a year or two, and in 

 all cases buy your inside hive furniture. Home made frames 

 and section-holders are more of a nuisance than you will 

 be able to realize until you have stocked your apiary with 

 them. 



Procure at the outset a good strain of Italian bees, or, 

 better still, purchase them of some successful apiarist of 

 your acquaintance, as he will be pretty apt to have good 

 stock. Pay no attention to flaming advertisements of long- 

 tongued queens, superior stock, etc., until you have made 

 a success with the common stock. The so-called superior 

 stock doubtless possesses merit, but it will not pay for 

 you to bother with it until you have at least mastered the 

 common branches of apiculture. 



Your half-dozen colonies will increase just about as fast 

 as it will be safe for you to enlarge your operations. One 

 thing, especially, you must guard against is your enthusiasm. 

 That will rise like an ocean tide at the harvest of }-our first 

 crop of honey, and you will want to buy all of your neigh- 

 bors' bees and then some more; but don't do it. Y'ou will 

 reap disaster if you do. Grow into it, and you will come 

 out all right. 



And, lastly, I want to advise you, as your first duty, 

 to join your State bee-keepers' association; and when your 

 honey crop becomes too large to dispose of at home, join the 

 Honey-Producers' Association and market your honey co- 

 operatively through that channel. 



I want to impress upon you the advantage and necessity 

 of co-operating with your fellow bee-keepers in every possible 

 way. Bee-keepers must co-operate with each other in 

 every way that can revert to their mutual advantage, or get 

 left. That is the naked truth of the matter, tersely 

 stated. Co-operation is the great fact of the Twentieth 

 Century, It is the beginning of a better, juster, and more 

 Christian civilization. It behooves us as bee-keepers to 

 fall in line, and thus be in accord with the spirit of the New 

 -pifne H. C. Morehouse. 



Mr Devinney— It is one thing to join the Association, 

 and another to attend. I think the attendance is more im- 

 portant than the joining. I object to advising beginners to 

 start with the S-frame hive. That size requires particular 

 attention to make it a success. 



H. Rauchfuss— Why advise beginners to buy Italian bees? 



Mr. Morehuose— Because for all purposes they are the 

 best race of bees. 



H. Rauchfuss— My experience is that the Italians are 

 the Grossest bees, especially those with four or five bands. 

 I advise Carniolans. 



Mr. Lytic— I object to the advice to buy bees without 

 regard to the stock bought. I should not want my neighbors 

 to buy worse stock than I have. I don't want to be served 



