306 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



MAT 



HOW MUrH DOES A POUND OF HONEY ! 



< OST » ! 



FHIEND DOOLITTLE GIVES US "FAX AN' FIQGEHS." j 



£*^N page 95 of Gleanings, present volume, Mr. j 

 m H. White writes: "Don't we say too much 



~ about getting a big price for our honey? 

 Would it not be better to try to raise it so we can af- i 

 ford to sell it cheaper? It does not seem to me It j 

 will ever become the staple article we wish, unless 

 wecan sell very cheap." On the same page, reply- 

 ing to the above, our worthy editor says: " I agree 

 with you in regard to furnishing honey at a low 

 price, and have felt quite a degree of pleasure in 

 furnishing honey for only 10 cts., in 50-lb. cans." 



From the above it would look as if ive bee-keepers 

 were asking an exorbitant price for our product, and 

 fretting i-iclt out of the sales of honey from our apia- 

 ries, thus hindering the rank and file of the people 

 from consuming our honey, by the high prices we 

 ask for it? But, wait a moment. Another worthy 

 editor speaks from page 181, of the Amcr. ApicuUu- 

 rist for 1883, and says: "After paying the supply- 

 dealer's bills, the current expenses of the apiary, the 

 cost of shipping the honey, and the demands of 

 those who sell the honey for the bee-keepers, there 

 is but a small amount left for their own remunera- 

 tion for their hard season's work, and the interest j 

 on the capital invested. Do we state the facts in 

 the case? It may be pleasing to listen to the reports 

 rf large crcps of honey; but when we sit down and 

 carefully estimate how many pounds of extracted or 

 cs)mb honey must be taken from an apiary of lOJ 

 colonies to payihe expenses, and give the apiarist 

 fair compensation for his time and investment, a 

 great deal of the beauty of the picture is spoiled." 



Again, W. E. Clark, President of the N. E. B.-K. 

 Convention, says in his address to that convention in 

 lSf^4: "The bee-keeper's calling is one of sweat and 

 toil; every dollar that the bee-keeper gets is well 

 earned." Mr. Clark is a thoroughly practical man, 

 and any one who has read any of his writings can not 

 help but feel that his statements are practical and 

 truthful. 



Now, from the above and other similar expres 

 sions which I have read, I can not but conclude that 

 we are not thoroughly posted regarding what 1 lb. 

 of honey costs us to produce the same; and the ob- 

 ject of this article is to show, as nearly as may be, 

 what the actual cost of 1 lb of honey is. , 



P. H. Elwood, who is one of the largest honey-pro- 

 ducers of this State, once said to me that any man j 

 who could successfully manage an apiary of 100 colo- 

 nies of bees, spring count, would command a salary 

 of ^1000 in any business he might see fit to engage 

 in. This statement of friend E. I believe to be near 

 the truth, after a careful comparison of men, and 

 salaries obtained by different pei'sons, during the 

 past lew years; butinorder not to be considered ex- 

 travagant, I shall reduce it one-half, and allow ?5i 

 aa the necessary amount to pay a man competent to 

 successfully manage an apiary of 100 colonies of 

 bees. Then we have a capital of s^OOO invested in 

 bees, calling each cohmy worth S6 00, which would i 

 give .S3t) 00 in Interest to be added to the .^.500, cajling [ 

 the interest at per cent, and .-Jl.OO as taxes, where 

 our bees are assessed at .'J5.00 per colony, as mine 

 are. Then we have s^200 invested in hives and fix- I 

 tures, which, in order to keep good, and renew them 

 when necessary, will require double interest at i 

 )east, or 13 per cent, which eives §24.00 more, ThiSQ ' 



we must buy or make 5000 sections =825; 200 ship- 

 ping-cases and glass for the same, costing 840, and 

 50 lbs. thin foundation for sections, amounting to 

 830, at 60 c. per lb. To this we must add cartage of 

 our honey to the nearest city or railroad, costing me 

 811.00, and the rent of a shop and grounds for our 

 apiary, coating .¥30 more, so that we have 8T0O as 

 the total cost of the working of our apiary of 100 

 colonics of bees. If we own the shop and land 

 which is required for our apiary, the cost to us will 

 be as great to pay the interest and taxes, keeping it 

 in repair, etc., as the rent would be were we to hire 

 the same. Because a man owns a thing does not 

 make it cost him any the less, even if it does make 

 him feel more independent. Many seem to suppose 

 that when they own a thing, the use of it does not 

 cost them any thing; but often a few years will 

 prove that the use of it would have cost them less 

 had they rented it. Thus we have 8T00 as the act- 

 ual cost of what honey our IfiO colonies of bees may 

 produce us. The next thing is, to ascertain how 

 much honey we can expect year after year from 

 them. 



As the honey-production of our country has been 

 of great interest to me, I have carefully noted all 

 convention reports, and also all reports given by 

 practical and successful apiarists, and I find that 

 the average yield of honey, year after year, report- 

 ed by thi-3 class of individualsi, in the United States, 

 is not far from 50 lbs. of comb honey. Into this es- 

 timate I have not taken those who keep from 3 to 5 

 colonies of bees, and "gush over " with a report of 

 from 200 to 3i0 lbs. of honey per colony, nor, on the 

 other hand, those who have made an entire failure 

 of keeping the same number of colonies. Such as 

 these do not come under the head of successful api- 

 arists, capable of caring for 100 colonies of bees. 

 Thus we have 5000 lbs. of comb honey as the equiva- 

 lent of our 8700, taking the years as they average 

 throughout the U. S. Now by dividing the 8700 by 

 the 5000 lbs., we shall have the cost of 1 lb., which 

 proves to be 14 cts.; so that, if the comb honey of 

 the U. S. nets the producers less than It cts. per lb., 

 we are keeping bees at a loss; and if more, we are 

 making our avocation profitable. 



The same holds good regarding extracted honey. 

 The case is the same, with the exception that, per- 

 haps, the packages both*~for storing and shipping 

 cost a little less. From a careful account kept 

 with ray own bees, and a summarizing of reports, I 

 believe that about li more extracted honey can be 

 obtained from the same apiary than comb, which 

 gives us 7500 lbs. as the product of our 100 colonies. 

 The cost (8700) divided by this gives us fl'-i cts. as the 

 cost of one pound of extracted honey. By allowing 

 ihe ij cent as saved on the cost of packages over 

 comb honey, we have 9 cts. as the actual cost of 1 lb. 

 of extracted honey throughout the U. S. In this, 

 Mr. T. W. Fleming (page 99) will find an answer to 

 his questions regarding the profitableness of ex- 

 tracted honey compared with comb honey. 



Now, having the above before us, I wish to say to 

 friend White, that if, in order to have honey "be- 

 come the staple article we wish," it must go lower 

 than 9 cts. per lb. for extracted, or 14 cts. for comb. 

 It is very poor policy for us to wish for a staple ar- 

 ticle; for of what object would a staple article be, 

 when we could not live at the price paid for the 

 production of it? 



To friend Boot I wish to say, that I feel no "degree 

 pf pleasure " at havjng Ifim sell a product of mine 8Q 



