February, 1917 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



105 



''pIIE question 



„t „„.„,.. OUT -APIARY EXPENSES 



anes a n d 

 their desirability 

 may be looked 

 iijion from many 

 .standpoints, and 

 j-et the experi- 

 ence of any one 

 beekeeper mnst of necessity be limited. 

 Localities vary, seasons vary, the bees vary, 

 and perhaps, more important than all, the 

 beekeepers themselves vary. I am running 

 seven apiaries, and in a good season there 

 are enough bees to satisfy the desire of a 

 prettj' ambitious man. On the other hand, 

 if the season is poor I have far more bees 

 than enough, and the poorer the season the 

 worse off I am, and the greater the loss. 

 It is still a question in my mind if, instead 

 of extensive out-apiaries, it would not be 

 more profitable for a beekeeper to own his 

 own home and ground, to keep several cows, 

 a limited number of chickens, to have a good 

 garden suppljdng first - class vegetables — 

 enough for his own use and some besides — 

 then have his bees on the same place where 

 they can be cared for at the least expense. 

 There is a great saving in labor and time in 

 having the bees in one place, and that in the 

 home apiary. Time and again there are 

 things that I should like to do or to look 

 after that are impossible because I am not 

 on the spot, and conditions might change 

 by the time I could get there. 



If the beekeeper is isolated from other 

 bees so that there is a range of, say, two 

 miles in every direction, and if he is in a 

 good locality, I doubt whether it pays to 

 split up an apiary short of 200 colonies. 

 In sajdng this I take it for granted that the 

 readers of Gleanings all know that over- 

 slocking is felt ]3articularly at the time 

 that the bees are building up for the surplus 

 honey-flow — in this locality, during the 

 blooming of soft and hard maiilfs, dande- 

 lion, and fruit. 



THE COST OF THE GROUND. 



In establishing an out-apiary some rent 

 or its equivalent must be paid for the loca- 

 tion. I know that locations are sometimes 

 offered rent free. I have had such offers, 

 but have never accepted them. In any 

 event it is not a legitimate way of calculat- 

 ing the expense of the undertaking. It 

 may be foolish for me to mention what I 

 pay a year for enough s])ace to put an 

 apiary. Some may say it is too much, 

 othei-s that it is too little. I pay $20 a year 

 for a suitable place to put an apiarj', pref- 

 erably an apple-orchard, and for a place 

 to extract and store supplies. I never agree 



The Importance of Keeping the 



Most Accurate Account of all of 



the Necessary Overhead Costs 



By R. F. Holtermann 



to give away any 

 honey; but if I 

 get a fair crop the 

 owner of the land 

 gets 60 pounds of 

 honey, or some- 

 times even more. 



THE COST OF 

 TRANSPORTATION 



A conveyance must be supplied, and a 

 conveyance costs something. If one has 

 horses he must keep track of the time used 

 and divide the cost proportionately — so 

 many days in the garden, so many days for 

 the bees, so many for family use, etc. I 

 enumerate every outlay, expenditure, and 

 returns. ]\Ierely to say that I have a con- 

 veyance anyway, so it costs me nothing, is 

 not sound business reasoning. It would be 

 like charging the first boarder for rent, 

 heating, and other overhead expenses, and 

 then figuring the cost of the other boarders 

 merely on the amount of food consumed. 



The cost of running an automobile varies 

 considerably. I think that many, in their 

 desire to tell a good story, inadvertently de- 

 ceive themselves and others. Some drivers 

 can smash an automobile in five seconds and 

 never know it. Another can run them for 

 five years and never have an accident. I 

 have found that with an auto it is necessaiy 

 to attend at once to anything that goes 

 wrong. This is a good rule to follow with 

 any machinery. There are no superfluous 

 parts about a good machine; and therefore 

 if only one screw or bolt is out of commis- 

 sion it means added strain on some other 

 that is not expected to do double duty. If 

 I pay $1000 for an auto I must charge $60 

 a year interest against the business, and al- 

 so a further charge to take care of depre- 

 ciation in value. How much does an auto- 

 mobile depreciate in value in a year? The 

 question is not so much what my opinion is, 

 but what the value of the machine is on the 

 open market. A $1000 machine with aver- 

 age wear will usually depreciate in value 

 $200 or more in a year. I bought a machine 

 that had been used for demonstrating. It 

 had aij exceptionally good engine. The 

 price when new w^as $1200; but after it had 

 been used one season for demonstrating I 

 paid $850 for it. In this way I did not 

 lose tlie first gi'eat depreciation. The ma- 

 chine is run mainly on stiff clay roads. The 

 country is fairly level ; but when wet the 

 roads are dreadful, and at limes almost im- 

 passable. This is a serious handicap for 

 automobile travel — ^very hard especially on 

 the tires, because the ruts, when dry and 

 hard, cut the rubber badly. We have used 

 up four or five outer cases evei-y season 



