218 



gleani:ngs in bee culture. 



Mar. 



With Replies from our best Authorities on Bees. 



All queries sent in for this department should be briefly 

 stated, and free from any possible ambiguity. The question 

 or questions should be written upon a separate slip of paper, 

 .and marked, " For Our Question-Box." 



Question No. 40.— Which do ynu consider to he the 

 more ■profitahle industry— poultry-keeping or hce-keep- 

 ingl How do you think the two industries go together^ 



1. Bee-keeping. 2. Fairly well. 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



1. Bee-keeping. ~. First rate. 



Mrs. L. Harrison. 

 I have had no experience in poultry-keeping. 



Chas. F. Muth. 

 In some localities, poultrj'-keeping; and in oth- 

 er localities, bee-keeping. 2. Well. 



Dr. a. B. Mason. 

 1. Bee-keeping, emphatically. 3. It depends on 

 taste. We know of enthusiastic apiarists who have 

 no taste for poultry-keeping. Dadant & Son. 



I have had no very extensive experience with 

 poultry, but I do not think the two Industries 

 would " gibe " very well. W. Z. Hutchinson. 



1. Bee-keeping; 2. First rate, for a short time; but 

 one or the other will sooner or later be dropped. 

 They ought to go well together, but generally don't. 



Geo. Grimm. 



1. Bee-keeping. I think poultry-keeping could be 

 made a good industry in connection with bee-keep- 

 ing? 2. I don't think either would be in the way of 

 the other. E. France. 



T have always found bees to pay l)etter than 

 poultry. The two industries go very well together, 

 especially as both can occupy the same ground. I 

 have always raised chickens in the apiary. 



Paul L. Viallon. 



Beekeeping, decidedly. They do not conflict at 

 all. If the poultry-keeper works for winter eggs, 

 as he should, this divides his work well, especially 

 if he rears his chicks io March and April, as he 

 should. A. J. Cook. 



1. Bee-keeping. 2. I do not know by experience, 

 but I believe poultry-keeping would go better with 

 bee-keeping, than farming or fruit-raising. My ad- 

 vice in most cases is, to let bee-keeping alone or 

 make it a specialty. James Heddon. 



1. Largely a matter of location. Within ten miles 

 of Toledo I should expect the chicken-man to make 

 the most money; but the bee-man will have some 

 leisure winters while the other has not. 2. No man 

 sighs for additional industries when the swarming 

 fever rages among his bees. The combination is 

 possible, and may be desirable to some. 



E. B. Hasty. 



1. Jones makes money at poultry, and would 

 make a poor success with bees. He's an out-and- 

 out chicken-man. Smith is an out-and-out bee- 

 man, and makes bees pay, but would lose on chick- 

 ens. Brown can make an equal gain at either, and 

 Black would make a failure at either. 



2. If A. I. Root would become as much interested 

 iQ incubators and brooders as he is in vegetables, I 

 think he would show us how to run poultry so as 

 not to interfere with bees, and make a success of it. 



C. C. Miller, 



I think, friends, that George Grimm 

 strikes on tlie truth of the matter. Who- 

 ever takes up any industrj^ expects to devel- 

 op it and enlarge it. Xo one man can very 

 well develop and enlarge bee culture and 

 poultry-raising at one and the same time. 

 He may, it is true, put in his spare time 

 during winters and early spring with poul- 

 try ; but when his business gets to be so large 

 as to take his energies all the year round 1 

 think one or the other will be dropped. 



Question No. 41.— L Is the general run of farm- 

 work harder than the bimness of honey-prodiKingf 

 2. Do you consider the hee-business, as a hiisiness, a 

 comparatively light occupation? 



Yes, to both questions. 



Geo. Gri.mm. 



1. Yes; 2. No, not if you want it to pay. 



Paul L. Viallon. 



1. Yes. 3. For me it is, if compared with farming. 



Dr. a. B. Mason. 

 1. Most certainly; 2. Compared with farming, un- 

 doubtedly. Chas. F. Muth. 



1. I think it is; 2. No, 1 do not. There is much 

 toil and perspiration about it. G. M. Doolittle. 



1. Yes; 3. It is certainly lighter than farmiog, 

 though there is hard work in it at times. 



Dadant & Son. 



1. Not as heavy: but duriug the swarming and 

 honey season, more confining; 3. I do. 



Mrs. L. Harrison. 



1. 1 think they are about equally hard. 2. Take 

 the whole year, yes. During May and June, uo. 



A. J. Cook. 



1. A little, perhaps; 2. The man in search of a 

 light occupation, who goes into bees, will soon 

 " light out " of the vocation. E. E. Hasty. 



1. I think it is, but there's much ia being used to 

 it. I couldn't pitch a single load of hay without 

 being "bushed." Jack Wilson can pitch hay all 

 day, but he would be badly " bushed " to go through 

 with one of my day's work in the busy season. 3. 

 Hardly, compared with other occupations in gener- 

 al; and yet, when a man no stronger than I can fol- 

 low it, it can't be so very heavy. C. C. Miller. 



1. It is difficult to giveadefluite answer. There 

 is farming and there is farming. There is the old 

 way of scythes and hand-rakes and pitch-forks 

 and cradles, and binding with bands of straw, and 

 there is the new way with mowers and horse-rakes 

 and horse-forks and self binders and potato-dig- 

 gers and sulky-plows, etc. We doubt if, between 

 modern farming and modern bee-keeping, there is 

 very much difference so far as physical labor is con- 

 cerned, w. z. Hutchinson. 



1. No; 2. No. 1 was born and lived on the farm 

 until I was IH. Then I worked ia an iron-furnace 

 winters, and clearing up a 40-acre lot, and farming 

 summers, for several years; worked at coopering, 

 making salt-barrels: in short, I have worked at 

 many kinds of woik. No matter what I do, work is 

 work, and bee-keeping is no exception. I get just 

 as tired working with bees as at any other work 

 that I ever did. It is no light easy work to handle 

 bees, if it is done for a business. E. France, 



