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GLEANINGS IN BEE CUJ/PUUE. 



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he depended entirely upon his Jioneu for an income, 

 the attention he gives to queen-rearing would be 

 well employed upon another apiary, if he had four 

 apiaries with 50 colonies each, and obtained only 100 

 lbs. per colony; 30,000 lbs., at 5 cts., equals $1000. 

 He would be better off financially than if he stuck 

 to his 50; but if he can make his apiaries yield 300 

 or 400 lbs. per colony, he is so much better off. 

 Again, 300 or more colonies would require but a 

 slight increase of honey per colony to add many 

 dollars to his pocket. 



Every bee-keeper who has bees in different apia- 

 ries knows that a locality six miles away will yield, 

 sometimes, much more than the home yard. To 

 take advantage of these extra yields, the apiarist 

 must have more than one apiary. Another reason 

 Avhy the apiarist must raise larger yields than .50 

 swarms can produce, is the cheapness of the prod- 

 uct. It is now at a price where it seems it will not 

 pay to adulterate it, and the outlook for the future 

 gives us no hopes for higher prices. 



A few 3'ears ago, and at present, there has been 

 and is a cry against the small honey-producer. He 

 has five or ten colonies of bees; and just as soon as 

 he gets a box of honey he trots oft' to some grocery 

 and trades it off' for tea or sugar, at the grocer's 

 own price, which is usually very low, thus setting 

 the price for the specialist, who wishes to sell in the 

 same town. But, let us look upon the other side, 

 and see what the large producers are doing. Here 

 is a man who has 800 swarms of bees in several apia- 

 ries. Perhaps it costs him $1009 to run those differ- 

 ent apiaries; but his yield is 30 tons of comb honey. 

 He can not afford to peddle it around to Tom, Dick, 

 and Harry, but sells his entire crop for, say, 10 cts. 

 per lb., thus getting a profit of $3000. Now " I rise 

 to inquire " Where is j'our man with 50 colonies, try- 

 ing to make a living out of them? Between the 

 large producer and the small one ho is ground to 

 powder. The price for his honey is set by the for- 

 mer in the cities; by the latter, in his own town. He 

 has got to continue his business with something 

 else, or go into it deeper or step down and out. Every 

 person who is making money in the bee-business at 

 the present time is a large producer, or else is a 

 large queen-breeder, or a large manufacturer of 

 supplies. 1 speak for the present. Bro. D. speaks 

 in a certain sense for the future. 1 hope the time 

 will come wheu one swarm, if large enough, 

 will produce tons of honey; but suppose we 

 have an extra severe winter, or some other unex- 

 pected severity, our one swarm, or, if you please, 

 our 50, will die— we are out of the business sudden- 

 ly; but if we have 400 or 800, the chances are that 

 we shall have 100 or more left with which to com- 

 mence the season. 'We also find that those large 

 yields of honey of from 500 to 1000 lbs. from single 

 colonies are events of a lifetime. A few years ago 

 B. F. Carroll, of Texas, reported nearly 1000 lbs. 

 from one colony; but we may scan the pages of the 

 journals as close as we please, and we don't hear of 

 its repetition. It is just the same with nearly all of 

 these immense yields. Our kind friend, the editor 

 of Gleanings, obtained an immense yield from his 

 entire apiary, arjd astonished everybody, long be- 

 fore GLE.4.NINGS was born, and he even now occa- 

 sionally refers to it; but we don't hear of his repeat- 

 ing it. Perhaps it is beqause from 300 to 500 colonies 

 are kept in one apiary, and for this cause our friend 

 has to buy California honey by the carload. But, 

 Pro. Koot, \f it is such a flnp thing, please rcdu^'Q 



your apiary to fifty colonies, and give us another 

 rousing report. 



In the foregoing 1 have not entered into detail in 

 relation to the cost of running an apiary for extract- 

 ed or comb honey. My experience teaches me that it 

 costs less in help, costs less in packages, less in 

 shipping to market; the swarming fever is largely 

 controlled, and I can sell honey[in.ton lots for 5Icts., 

 if our comb-honey producers can for 10 cts., there- 

 fore if an apiary is run cither way, the profits will 

 be about the same; and with present methods and 

 appliances, I think the large number of colonies, 

 although they may consume 60 lbs. of honey per 

 year, the little laborers are worthy of their hire, 

 and are giving, in many apiaries, better results 

 financially than the few. 



As pi'cviously stated, Bro. D. speaks of the future, 

 when the coming time and the coming bee will have 

 arrived to stay. Even then, when that time comes, 

 in whatever shape, round, rectangular, triangular, 

 or reversible, or when the bee'comes that will work 

 upon red clover, and each one of our 50 colonies 

 produces 1000 lbs., hundreds of bee-keepers will look 

 over into the unoccupied field in an adjoining town, 

 and, with characteristic enterprise, plant a success- 

 ful apiary there; but the glorious day has not 

 dawned, even though some claim to rear red-clover 

 queens. 



KKU-CLOVER QUEENS. 



I do not wish to impute actual dishonesty tojthe 

 breeders. There may be a plausible excuse for 

 them to so name their queens; neither do I deny 

 that they have a valuable strain of bees. You will 

 notice a remarkable coincidence. These queen- 

 breeders all live in localities where red clover is 

 raised for seed. The seed is secured from the sec- 

 ond crop: this crop might be termed out of season, 

 and, owing to the strength of the flower going to 

 the production of seed,5the Howcr is much smaller, 

 and the secretion of honey much less, and the bees 

 work upon it to a certain extent, but, we claim, 

 not moi'e than any other good strains of bees. 1 

 ha\e even seen black bees working fx-eelyiupon 

 red clover. 



It is, futhermore, a remarkable fact that the 

 yields of honey in the immediate vicinity of these 

 remarkahle queens is not larger than in other local- 

 ities. It would be a fact beyond controversj', and 

 convincing, if the bees could obtain honey from the 

 first crop of red clover, for each swarm would make 

 such astonishing yields that every bee-journal 

 would shout over it. The papers would hatch up a 

 story about the bee-keepers making artificial red 

 clover, and setting thelroots in sweetened water. 

 Bro. Doolittle could sit down under ^his own vine 

 and fig-tree by the side of that .50 swarms, and sing 

 pieans over his thousands upon thousands of^pounds 

 of honey. The reader will now] bear] in'' mind that 

 this is a remarkable age. Every new thing should 

 be investigated ; and whenlyou spend your'^hard- 

 earned dollars for an article of which; you have 

 something as good, if not better, in your own'apiary. 

 you feel like saying right out loud, " Humbugged 

 again." J. H. Martin. 



Hartford, N. Y., Jan. 39, 1886. 



Friend M., in your estimate of the honey 

 received from 50 colonies, you say nothing 

 about increase of stock, and 1 believe it is 

 generally conceded that as much honey can 

 be secured with fi moderate increase of stock 

 fis by holding the original fifty downtoabso' 



