18 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



ing is hard work I do not assert 

 that great strength is absolutely 

 required. People who can lift but 

 a small number of pounds may- 

 succeed, if that is all the disability, 

 Strength often comes very handy, 

 however ; and considerable expen- 

 diture of muscle must be put forth 

 for many hours of the day. I 

 have been a farmer boy under a 

 good old farmer who was a foe to 

 both leisure and play ; but I think 

 I never in ni}'^ life wrought so many 

 hours as last summer with my bees. 

 Apiary work has much of it to be 

 done in a half bent posture, and is 

 the harder on that account. 



To go for another misapprehen- 

 sion, bee-keeping is very dirty 

 work. Outsiders think it is nice — 

 misled probably by the dainty 

 purity of a section of clover honey. 

 Alas, there is a difference between 

 the product and the work ! as much 

 as there is between a nice sheet of 

 white paper and the work of gath- 

 ering and sorting the rags. If one 

 contemplated becoming a sailor he 

 would regret the hard necessity of 

 getting used to having his hands 

 continually covered with pitch and 

 tar. Between tar and propolis 

 there is scarce a penny to choose. 

 There are agents that will remove 

 propolis from the hands, but prac- 

 tically one has to get used to 

 having his hands stuck up with it 

 most of the time. If something 

 that it will not do to defile must be 

 touched, just rub the hands with 

 soil or sawdust, or clench the 

 smooth branch of a tree, and 

 wrench the closed fingers ai'ound it 

 until the propolis, partly rubbed 



off and partly glazed over, ceases 

 for the moment to stick. 



A brand-new misapprehension 

 that has got afloat of late is that bee- 

 culture is enormously profitable, a 

 regular bonanza in fact, say 100 

 colonies yielding $50, each equal 

 $5,000 per year. I fear that the 

 sulphurous and nigritudinous lies 

 some brethren and sisters have been 

 telling are responsible for much of 

 this. When you find a bee man 

 who makes $5,000 per year on his 

 bees just cast a net over him until 

 the rest of us can come and take a 

 good look. The net will last 

 many years before it is worn out. 



Another misapprehension that 

 I fear has gained some currency is 

 that apiculture is a matter of such 

 simple routine that any person, 

 even though not naturally ingen- 

 ious or thoughtful, can easily 

 master it. This looks to me as 

 the most rank ferror of all. A bun- 

 gler cannot keep bees with success. 

 In scarcely any other avocation is 

 a living won b}"- so large an expen- 

 diture of brain. 



To all these disadvantages an- 

 other must be added. The business 

 has a spice of lottery about it. 

 Frightful losses are liable to come 

 in Februar}'^, March and April, 

 sweeping away perhaps five hundred 

 dollars worth of bees as with the 

 " bees-em" of destruction. More- 

 over, once in a while will come a 

 summer in which scarcel}'^ a pound 

 of surplus honey can be obtained. 

 The downcast bee-man, with no 

 income at all to draw on, must 

 either buy barrels of sugar to feed 

 the bees for their winter food, or 



