No. 4.] BEE KEEPING. 399 



BEE KEEI^ING : ITS I'LEASURES AND I^ROFITS. 



BV JAMF.S H. I'AIGK, ri{(»ri:SS()U OF VKTKRINAKV SCIRN'CR, MASSA- 

 CIirSKTTS A(JUICULTrKAL COl.LKCiK. 



Forty or fifty years ago nearly every farmer kept a few 

 swarms of bees. They furnished him and his family with a 

 healtliful article of food that was considered ahnost a neces- 

 sity. To-day it is the exception rather than the rule that 

 one sees about the farmer's home these producers of the 

 most wholesome and delicious table delicacy that it is possi- 

 ble to obtain. 



In addition to the production of honey, bees perform an 

 invaluable service to the farmer and fruit grower by the 

 fertilization and cross-fertilization of flowers. The value of 

 what they do in this way cannot be estimated. Growers of 

 hothouse cucumbers and melons make use of them to carry 

 pollen from flower to flower. This work was formerly done 

 by hand, by the use of a camel's hair pencil. It has been 

 found that it can be more cheaply and as eflectivel}' done, 

 at all times of the year, by allowino^ bees to circulate in 

 the hothouse, visiting the flowers upon the vines as they 

 develop. 



Bee keeping not only serves as a source of profit to those 

 who keep them, but they afl'ord a vast amount of enjoyment 

 to one interested in the study of insect life. 



The Year Book of the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture for 1901 says, in part, of bees and production of 

 honey and wax: "About one farm in nine in the United 

 States was reported as keeping bees in 1900. The largest 

 total value of honey and wax produced by any State in 1899 

 was by Texas, $468,527. Alaska made no report, and the 

 value of the product in the District of Columbia was $5(5. 



