GENERAL 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



'PONDENCE 



OPERATIVE COSTS; THE FREQUENT WASTE OF TIME AND LABOR 



BY ARTHUR C. MILLER 



Arthur C. Miller 



In the Jan. 15th 

 issue, page 50, 1 tried 

 hard to bring home 

 to the readers some 

 of the economics of 

 bee culture, using the 

 new method of queen 

 introduction as the 

 ^■ehicle to convey my 

 ideas. I rather flat- 

 lered myself that I did very well, and 

 thought I said things in such a manner as 

 would set some of the beekeepers to think- 

 ing, and to considering the cost of some of 

 tlieir methods. In fact, I felt quite sure 

 that I had so carefully expressed myself 

 that there would be no missing the message 

 T wished to give. 



The editor gave it a kind notice in his 

 department; but as he seems to have been 

 so interested in the percentage of queens 

 lost that he quite missed the matter of 

 dollars and cents, I fear that I was not as 

 clear as I thought. The editor also slipped 

 up in his percentage figiires, as I think I 

 can show. He says the loss by the cage 

 method in his yards is 10 per cent, and that 

 by two of the most expert queen-handlers 

 in the country. Then he says that of 100 

 queens sent to a customer, the latter lost 10 

 per cent; and it was right there, I fear, his 

 arithmetic gave out. He lost 10 per cent, 

 tlie customer lost 10 per cent of the same 

 lot of queens, and ten plus ten makes twen- 

 ty. But of all the queens he produced he 

 had only 90 per cent left to sell; so, to be 

 really accurate, his customer lost but 10 per 

 cent of 90 per cent, or 9 per cent — total, 19 

 per cent. But that isn't correct, though it 

 may appear to be; for if his loss was 1!) 

 per cent, then he must have lost one of the 

 extra ten he bought; so the real shrinkage 

 on the original lot of queens was 20 per 

 cent. Now that, mind you, was by experts 

 When I said the loss by the cage method 

 was about 40 per cent, I based my state- 

 ment on answers to queries, on testimony 

 jiicked up when inspecting and by personal 

 experience. If you choose to pull in the 

 poor beginner by the scruff^ of his neck you 

 will find his loss will average nearer sixty 

 than forty per cent. 



Whatever t' e editor does with my figures, 

 he must double his own. He based his on 



exiaerts, while I based mine on all classes, 

 which, from the lesson I was trying to teach, 

 was the proper basis. 



Accepting the loss of twenty per cent by 

 experts as the correct one for the commer- 

 cial beekeepers, and leaving the novice and 

 amateur out of the question, we still have a 

 startling money loss by the cage method of 

 queen introduction. If memory serves me 

 aright, the editor's output of queens is 

 about 5000 annually. Tor the sake of easy 

 figuring, we will use the retail j^rice of un- 

 tested queens as the unit price, to wit, $1.00. 

 That means $5000 worth of queens. Of this 

 he confesses to losing 10 per cent by the 

 cage method of handling, or $500. His 

 customers lose an equal amount — a rather 

 serious loss on a $5000 business, eh? 



Xow figure the loss to all the beekeepers 

 of the country, and set it over as one of the 

 overlooked costs of honey production. 



But two other items he has quite over- 

 looked — the labor {time used by the bee- 

 keeper in the cage plan of introducing and 

 subsequent inspection, etc.), and time colo- 

 nies are without a laying queen, and the 

 conseonent upset and indirect loss. To be 

 sure, the thoughtful man does his requeen- 

 ing when this latter is trifling; but it must 

 be reckoned, be it large or small. 



If the method of requeening without 

 dequeening proves successful, we may save 

 the time of hunting up the old queens, and 

 another \ery large cost item. Avill be removed. 



In other words, beekeepers are more 

 Avasteful of time and labor than they have 

 the slightest conception. By some of the 

 most popular and most widely taught meth- 

 ods of bee culture it costs as high as $5.00 

 and even $6.00 per year merely to handle 

 each colony of bees. It costs the best of us, 

 when using our brains all the year to save 

 us labor during " the season," approximate- 

 ly $2.00 a year to " handle " our bees. Un- 

 der exceptionally favorable conditions the 

 cost has been lowered to $1.00 per year : 

 but I believe $2.00 to be much below the 

 average, and am supported in this view by 

 some careful investigators. 



In the term " handle " I include all the 

 expense of keeping and operating a colony 

 of bees, such as interest, taxes, depreciation, 

 insurance, and labor. Supplies, such as 

 sections, super foundation, hives for 

 swarms, etc., are no part of operative cost. 



