April 11, 1907 



American Hee Journalj 



think that every practical bee-keeper 

 will keep the moths out of his combs. 

 There are several ways. You can wash 

 the extractor, and you can stack them 

 up on the hives. I have three or four 

 supers stacked on my hives today, and 

 the strong colonies are protecting them. 

 If I were in the North I would prac- 

 tice Northern methods, according to the 

 most successful bee-keepers. 



Mr. W. H. Laws, of Beeville, Texas, 

 then read a paper on 



THE COMPARATIVE PROFITS 



OF QUEEN-REARINQ AND 



rtONEV-PRODUC- 



TION. 



In the discussion of the question of 

 the comparative profits of queen-rear- 

 ing and honey-production, I realize that 

 it is a question that can not be settled 

 by mere figures, made theoretically, but 

 a question that can be solved only by 

 years of practical demonstration right 

 among the bees, and that, too, by a 

 skilled queen-breeder. 



To rear good queens, and to have 

 them for the market at all times dur- 

 ing the queen-rearing season, expert la- 

 bor is demanded ; without it, commer- 

 cial queen-rearing is a failure. 



To the man who can secure fair crops 

 of honey, year after year, is not always 

 due all the credit for his success; the 

 bees do the labor, the locality furnishes 

 the nectar, the bee-keeper only furnish- 

 ing the hives and storage-room, and 

 takes care of the swarms. 



I know just such men who make 

 money from their bees by honey-pro- 

 duction alone, who give the bees no 

 more attention than that just stated; and 

 these men seldom see a queen-bee from 

 one year's end to the other. It is un- 

 necessary to say that such men, though 

 successful in honey-production, are to- 

 tally unfit for queen-breeding. 



Many persons, successful as honey- 

 producers, and also familiar with the 

 conditions generally with the interior of 

 the hives at all times, become enthused 

 at seeing the multitude of young queens 



hatching about the swarming period, 

 and conceive the idea that if they could 

 only get all these young queens mated, 

 and sell them at a dollar each, (by ad- 

 vertising a little), they would see the 

 dollars roll in, while the bees were wait- 

 ing for a crop of honey! 



There is only one reason why a per- 

 son should embark in the queen-busi- 

 ness in a commercial way, and that is 

 environment, coupled with a natural 

 love for the business. 



By environment, we mean where a 

 person is so situated that he can not 

 secure a marketable product of honey 

 from his locality, or where the flow of 

 nectar is slow and of long duration, so 

 that the bees use the greater portion 

 of the season in swarming, or as was 

 the case with myself in a former local- 

 ity where at times the honey was so 

 bitter that it was impossible to dispose 

 of it on any market. 



Where the above conditions exist we 

 can readily see where the queen-breeder 

 might do well, while the honey-producer 

 might have a pronounced failure. 



On the other hand, any locality that 

 has short, heavy flows, one or more 

 during the season, and between these 



flows comparative idleness of the bees, 

 these conditions would be much better 

 for the honey-producer rather than the 

 commercial queen-breeder. 



The best possible condition, therefore, 

 for the queen-breeder is one long-con- 

 tinued, slow flow of nectar throughout 

 the entire season. 



In my first years of producing honey, 

 for the market, away back in the '8o's, 

 I lived in a locality that sometimes 

 yielded bitter honey; this flow of bitter 

 honey would usually come late in the 

 season, after the white honey crop had 

 been gathered. Some seasons, however, 

 the late summer rains would bring the 

 flow earlier, and the bees would store it 

 right along with the white honey. This 

 would spoil all for market. I remem- 

 ber one winter, when my honey-house 

 floor gave way because of the weight 

 of bitter honey stored for use in mak- 



VV. H. Laws. 



ing increase the following season, be- 

 fore the busy season had arrived, I had 

 figured out that if this bitter honey 

 was to continue to be a product of my 

 apiary, I would better establish some 

 better form of disposing of it than sim- 

 ply making increase of bees by the use 

 of this honey. So before spring I had 

 already determined that it would be 

 better to turn the product of the apiary 

 to first-class Italian queens rather than 

 bitter honey. 



Since changing locality, moving 700 

 miles further south, conditions and 

 honey-flow have wonderfully changed, 

 and possibly had I not been in the busi- 

 ness I would not be now known as a 

 commercial queen-breeder. 



My present locality, while almost an 

 ideal one for the rearing of early 

 queens, is also one that is ideal for an 

 early white honey crop, providing 

 weather conditions are favorable, which, 

 unfortunately, have been against us for 

 the past two seasons. 



Then there are other features of the 

 business that are to be taken into con- 

 sideration — the ability of the breeder to 

 rear good queens, and have them to 



ship promptly at all times, in and out of 

 season, his aptness and fitness to make 

 and hold a market, by prompt and 

 agreeable service; his prompt attention 

 to correspondence ; the satisfactory ad- 

 justment of all complaints; the proper 

 caging and mailing of queens, which 

 make tedious and sometimes long jour- 

 neys through the mails; and his deter- 

 mination to stay with the business 

 through adverse as well as through 

 prosperous seasons. It is a combination 

 of all these little details that go to 

 make success, and it must not be for- 

 gotten that many long and weary hours 

 must be put in at queen-rearing that 

 are unknown to the producer of honey. 



Since the keeping of out-apiaries for 

 honey has become so practicable and 

 popular, the advantage to the honey- 

 producer exceeds that of the queen- 

 breeder. Hundreds of colonies of bees 

 can be run lor honey, systematized into 

 out-apiaries, and be made more profit- 

 able to their owner than if he were to 

 devote the same amount of labor to 

 the production of queens, and, neces- 

 sarily, to a fewer number of colonies. 



In the foregoing no mention has been 

 made of the progress of modern or ex- 

 pert queen-rearing, for it is possible to 

 rear queens at a greater profit now than 

 in former years; but to figure the dif- 

 ference in the profits of queen-rearing 

 and honey-production — just when and 

 how this is to be done, I do not know 

 where to begin, for so much depends 

 upon conditions, the localitj-, and the 

 man, that it would be mere guess-work. 



We sometimes know of men w'ho have 

 produced 30,000, or 50,000, or 75,000, and 

 occasionally a man that produces 100,- 



000 pounds, of honey, in a single sea- 

 son, which when sold would bring the 

 modest little sum of $3,000 to $10,000, 



1 dare say there are none of our lead- 

 ing queen-breeders who realize half this 

 amount from the sale of queens, not 

 counting the fact that every apiary run 

 for queens is weakened— if not ruined — 

 by the excessive sale of this product. 

 All colonies run for honey are easily 

 kept in a normal, thrifty condition, 

 while queen - rearing yards have fre- 

 quently to be fed. 



We now leave this subject to our 

 brother bee-keepers of this Association, 

 who may weigh the matter with their 

 own minds, and render a verdict ac- 

 cording to their judgment. 



W. H. Laws. 



Pres. Dadant — The matter is open for 

 discussion now. I think the rearing of 

 queens in the South is of great import- 

 ance. 



W. H. Laws — I wish to say that this 

 matter is of but little importance to the 

 honey-producer. I will also say that I 

 have made a few figures. I think that 

 these people have spent on an average 

 of $40 to $50, and, figuring it up, it 

 seems about $40 per hour while we are 

 in session, and I want to call your at- 

 tention to the fact that a Mexican Sup- 

 per has been prepared for our members. 



Mr. France — I assure you that this is 

 a part of the program that the North- 

 ern people appreciate, and in order to 

 make everything satisfactory, Mr. Toep- 

 perwein says that it will be wise to go 

 soon. The distance to this first-class 

 Mexican supper is a little too far to 



