JUNE 16. 1914 



471 



Taking your question, " Does beekeeping 

 alone pay better than farming? " it may be 

 not very wide of the mark to say that wliile 

 out of an average buneh of a hundred men 

 each one may be able to make a living at 

 farming, some a very poor living, and others 

 a good deal more than a living, yet not more 

 than one out of the lot could make a living 

 at beekeeping alone. 



The important question for you to decide 

 is whether you are that one in the hundred. 

 Perhaps the first and greatest qualificatiou 

 for the business is a great and abiding love 

 for it. Your true beekeeper is so enamored 

 of the business that he would rather make a 

 bare living at it than to make a fortune at 

 fai'ming. And that very fact makes it 

 possible that he may make more money as a 

 beekeeper than as a farmer. 



So you see the question depends upoii 

 what you are yourself. The safe way for 

 you to find out is to feel your way. Don't 

 be in a hurry about burning your bridges 

 behind you, but hold on to farming until 

 you have gradually grown into beekeeping 

 on the side to such an extent that you can 

 feel safe in dropping every thing else with- 

 out asking advice from any one else about 

 it. 



Your question as to what may be expected 

 from two yards, each containing from 100 

 to 150 colonies each, is again one that can 

 not be answered by definite figures in a fev/ 

 words. In some locations 150 colonies in 

 one apiary would yield no surplus whatever, 

 for the field would yield no more than the 

 bees would need for their own use. Likely 

 enough, in most places more surplus could 

 be obtained from 100 colonies than from 

 150. 



From what you say in a part of your 



letter that is not printed, you are evidently 

 impressed by tlie fact that last year from 

 72 colonies, spring count, I averaged a little 

 more than 266 sections per colony. But 

 please don't understand that getting 260 

 sections per colony has become a fixed habit 

 with me. So far as I know, that's the world's 

 record for as many as 72 colonies, and T 

 reached it only once in the past 50 years. 

 (Don't make the mistake, either, of calling 

 it, as some have done, 266 pounds. If we 

 rail 12 sections 11 pounds, it will be about 

 244 pounds.) And it's not very likely I'll 

 reach it again in the next 50 years. I am 

 more likely to have years of dead failure. 

 In some locations you will do well if you 

 average 30 pounds of comb honey per colo- 

 ny, or 45 of extracted. In others you may 

 get twice as much. 



But there's something else to be figured 

 in, and it figures big, big. It's the extra 

 amount beekeeping puts into your life, 

 provided there's the stuff in you for a true 

 beekeeper. Compare your life as a true 

 beekeeper with the life of a man who stays 

 cooped up in a city office and accumulates 

 his thousands. Living close to nature in 

 the pure outdoor air, with wholesome exer- 

 cise, your span of life is likely to be 50 per 

 cent more than his. Then while he is look- 

 ing forward to the day wlien he can retire 

 from business and enjoy life — which time 

 he mostly never reaches — you are having 

 your fun right along with your work. So 

 far as I am capable of judging in such a 

 matter, if I were starting over again T 

 wouldn't swayi my beekeeper's life for that 

 of John D. Rockefeller amassing his mil- 

 lions. 



Marengo, 111. 



SWARMS FROM DISEASED COLONIES NOT RARE 



BY E. G. CARR 

 Deputy to the State Entomologist in Bee Inspection 



Deputy Stine of Ohio, page 822, Nov. 15, 

 1913, mentions the occurrence of swarms 

 from colonies affected with American foul 

 brood, and asks whether this is rare. In 

 New Jei-sey this frequently occurs, both in 

 the case of American and European foul 

 brood, and it is evidently the only reason 

 bees have not been completely wiped out in 

 some parts of the State. 



Both forms of foul brood in this locality 

 affect different colonies in varying degrees, 

 perhaps depending on the vigor of the 

 stock, coupled with the prosperity of the 

 season. 



A colony only slightly affected with for.) 



brood before the swarming season will 

 usually cast a swarm if other conditions are 

 favorable. This swarm, liived after the old 

 plan, in an empty box or keg, uses up its 

 infected honey in comb-building, and is 

 likely to pass that season healthy, only to be 

 infected the next spring by robbing the 

 parent colony which has by this time be- 

 come so weakened by disease as to become 

 a prey to robbers, and thus the cycle is 

 completed. 



THE DANGER IN GIVING THE BEES TOO MUCH 

 CREDIT AS POLLENIZERS. 



It would seem that we as beekeepers are 

 in danger of defeating our plans by claim- 



