1S07 



,LEAN1NC;S IN HEE CULTURE. 



333 



beos by nMiiiiiK tbo lir>=t edition of " King's 

 Hi't>-kiH'pers Tt'xt bool<," which chanced to fall 

 into my hands. Next I subscribed for one of 

 the bee papers, read Quinby's and Liingstroth's 

 books, and in March bought two colonies of 

 bees and the hives which I thought 1 should 

 need for two years, paying ^'M)X)0 for the whole. 

 The year 18()(t being the poorest one I have ever 

 known. 1 had but one swarm from the two col- 

 onies bought, and had to feed sss.OO worth of su- 

 gar to get the bees through the winter. In 1870 1 

 received enough from the boes to buy all the 

 fixtures I wished for 1S71. and a little to help on 

 ray other expenses from the farm. So I kept on 

 making the bees pay their way, as 1 had resolv- 

 ed, during the fall of 1 869, that, after paying 

 the 5^35. I would lay out no more money on the 

 bees than they brought in, believing that, if I 

 could not make the three colonies pay which I 

 then had, I could not three hundred. 



In the fall of ]872 I found that I had an aver- 

 age yield of SO pounds of comb honey from each 

 colony which I had in the spring, which was 

 sold so as to give me ^^r^e free of all expense in- 

 curred by the bees, except what time I found it 

 necessary to devote to them. 



That season I procured an extractor, and 

 being determined to give the bees the care they 

 needed, and knowing that the time the bees 

 needed the most attention would come in hay- 

 ing and harvest time, I hired a man to take my 

 place in the hayfield. It so happened that he 

 commenced work on the day basswood com- 

 menced to bloom. Previously I had hived a 

 single swarm in a hive filled with empty combs, 

 and concluded to devote them to extracted hon- 

 ey. The man worked sixteen days at $1.75 per 

 day; and I extracted, during those sixteen 

 days, honey enough from this colony to sell for 

 a few cents more than enough to pay the man 

 for his work. I state this to show that one new 

 swarm of bees, properly worked, was equiva- 

 lent to myself in the hayfield for sixteen days; 

 yet how many, keeping from 30 to 50 colonies of 

 bees, leave them, to go into the hay and har- 

 vest fields, and then tell us bee-keeping does 

 not payl You can hire a man to take your 

 place in the field; but if you expect to become 

 master of the bee-business, so as to make it 

 pay, you can not hire a man to take your place 

 in the apiary during the honey season; for, ac- 

 cording to my opinion, it takes much more 

 skill to be a successful honey-producer than it 

 does to do the ordinary work on a farm. When 

 the bees do not require any special attention, 

 then they can be left, and the apiarist do other 

 work, as he may have time; but the b^es must 

 not be neglected for a single day when that day 

 will put them in condition to bring us dollars in 

 the future, if we are to be successful bee-keep- 

 ers. 



In 1874 my honey was sold so as to bring me 

 §970, free of all expense from the bees, not 



counting my time, and I now began to think of 

 giving up the farm, but finally concluded to 

 iiold on to it one year more, to make sure that I 

 could make bee-keeping pay as a specialty. 

 After deducting the expenses of the bees from 

 the sales, I found that I had the next year (1875) 

 the amount of .S1431, and hesitated no longer, 

 but gave up farming and embarked in the bee- 

 business, with nothing else as a source of rev- 

 enue, although since then I have had other 

 "irons in the fire." Now, had I bought .50 to 

 100 colonies to start with, the expense in start- 

 ing would have been not less than 1300 to §400, 

 which, in all probability, I should have lost in 

 the business, for I should not have had a 

 knowledge equal to the doing of so large a busi- 

 ness on the start. 



My advice to the questioner, and all others 

 who think of trying bee-keeping as a business, 

 would be, procure two or three colonies of bees; 

 post yourself by reading and experimenting 

 with them, as you can find time to do from the 

 business you are already in, and thus find out 

 for yourself which is the better for a livelihood — 

 the business you are already in or keeping bees. 

 If successful, after a series of years you can 

 give up your other business if you wish to. On 

 the contrary ,;if bees are a failure in your hands, 

 then you will. '.be but little out for having tried 

 your hand at it. 



THE BOOMHOWER HIVE AND FRAME. 



Mr. Root:— I want to give you a little idea of 

 the style and construction of the hive I use. 

 We have 300 colonies, and have used this style 

 of hive for the last four years, and some of them 

 longer. I have discarded all Hoffman frames. 

 We used them two or three years, but found 

 them too expensive and unhandy for rapid han- 

 dling, crushing and killing too many bees. I 

 have now passed my twentieth year in this bus- 

 iness, making it my only occupation. I spent 

 one year in A. E. Manum's apiary and queen 

 business. I have in that time spent a small 

 fortune in experimenting, but have at last a 

 perfect hive at a little cost, and simple to make. 

 I will boldly make this assertion: That I with 

 this hive can do the work, and take up less than 

 half the time required in any other style of hive. 

 If you want to see something nice and handy, I 

 will send you a complete hive by freight. I 

 know you will laugh at the ease it can be han- 

 dled with. You can't possibly crush a bee in 

 handling the frames. A blind man with one 

 hand can run bees in it. 



You will see there is a complete bee-space 

 all around the frames, and no possible chance 



