202 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Apb. 1 



foundation (if bee-keeping has one, and it 

 surely has), where the locality favors it. 

 Cordele, Ga. 



BOOK-KEEPING AND BEE-KEEPING. 



How the Former Nay be the Means of Making 

 the Latter a Success. 



BY C. B. SNAVELY. 



Book-keeping and bee-keeping may seem 

 to be incongruous; still, it plays an impor- 

 tant part in the well-regulated apiary. It 

 is as essential as smokers and veils. You 

 might possibly get along without them, but 

 how handicapped you would be! So with 

 book-keeping; you could possibly manage 

 to get along without it; but how tangled up 

 you would be with every thing! You would 

 not know how much it was costing you to 

 run your apiary, nor how many pounds of 

 honey you were getting. You would know 

 but very little of the actual inside workings 

 of your own plant. If it is necessary, then, 

 to keep account of some things in order to 

 know about honey production and profit 

 and loss, is it not also essential to keep an 

 accurate record of every thing pertaining to 

 the plant? The records of some things may 

 be more necessary than others; but the rec- 

 ord of every thing becomes very valuable to 

 the careful bee-keeper. Book-keeping goes 

 hand in hand with successful bee-keeping. 

 In order to be successful you must know 

 about things; and to do this you must keep 

 account of every thing in a way that will 

 give you the information you need. 



If you are ultra careful you want to know 

 how many pounds of honey you get per col- 

 ony per year. This means some work, to 

 be sure; but how satisfactory at a time when 

 you want to select your breeding queens for 

 the spring? All that you have to do is to 

 look up the records, and that will tell the 

 story. Will not all this be worth the trou- 

 ble? 



As to the financial part of the business, I 

 presume that almost every one keeps some 

 sort of account of the cost of feed and the 

 amount received for honey; but would it 

 not be better to keep an accurate record of 

 every thing that costs money, and every 

 thing that produces the same? In order to 

 do this you must have a place to keep such 

 an account, and then be sure that every 

 thing is put down. Where there is no par- 

 ticular system for doing this, many things 

 escape notice that may sometimes put the 

 balance on the right side of the ledger. Keep 

 a record of every thing sold, whether it be a 

 pound of honey to a neighbor or a consign- 

 ment sold to the store. Likewise, if you 

 make purchases, large or small, see that it 

 is placed on the account. Then some day 

 when you want to know how things are run- 

 ning, all you have to do is to get out the 

 book and figure a little, and then you will 

 know. You will really know, not merely 

 guess at it; for the -.figures will tell you ac- 



curately how the thing stands. If there 

 is a loss you will be able to investigate and 

 discover where the leak is, and then remedy 

 it. In this way you will be able to overcome 

 any poorly conducted part of your work and 

 put it on a paying basis. 



There are many more minor things of 

 which a careful record should be kept, such 

 as when the colony became queenless; when 

 a queen was introduced or cells given; when 

 it had brood; when it swarmed; and in the 

 fall the quantity of stores it had when last 

 examined. You will also find it very valu- 

 able at another season to know the age of 

 the queens in their respective hives. It 

 pays to keep a record of every thing, and 

 thus counteract the errors of previous years. 



Not alone is it businesslike thus to do a 

 little book-keeping along with your bee- 

 work, but it is a pleasure to look over the 

 accounts from time to time. You can do 

 this and take comfort in it if, every day, 

 you will do a little book-keeping and have 

 a stated time and place for doing it. Re- 

 member, a lazy man in the bee business is 

 no worse than a dead one, only he takes up 

 more room. 



Lititz, Pa. 



[Failures in business of any kind are often 

 due to a lack of system and book-keeping. 

 Most large business concerns, especially 

 those engaged in manufacturing, have in- 

 stalled what is called a "cost system," 

 whereby not only the exact cost of each ar- 

 ticle manufactured is known, but the profit 

 or loss for each month of operation. Many 

 people fail because they don't Anoz^' whether 

 they are making or losing money. They 

 go ahead blindly, and then talk about "hard 

 luck " when they get into financial difiBcul- 

 ties. The bee-keeper needs to know where 

 he stands, as much as any one else; and his 

 business operations are not so complicated 

 but that he can know. 



Sometimes a farmer will be making mon- 

 ey right along on his farm, but losing con- 

 siderable in the dairy business without 

 knowing it. In the same way a bee-keeper 

 may be doing well selling honey, but losing 

 when he sells bees. Only a good system of 

 book-keeping will correct troubles of this 

 kind. — Ed.] 



HOW TO PROVIDE AGAINST THE BREAK- 

 AGE OF SECTIONS IN FOLDING. 



Is there Any Need or Excuse for Breaking 10 



per cent of the Sections in Removing from 



the Super? 



BY F. GREINER. 



On p. 534, Aug 15, 1910, is described an 

 unusual experience with one-piece sections, 

 and their breaking in folding them. The 

 writer, Mr. Maxwell, says: "Large quanti- 

 ties of sections never see service, because 

 they are broken in folding. ' ' If this is true 

 with him, then there is something wrong 

 with the man who does the folding. He 

 ought to fold a thousand without breaking 



