AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



533 



the care they needed, and knowing that 

 the time the bees needed the most care 

 came in haying-time, I hired a man to 

 take my place in the hayfield. It so 

 happened that he commenced work on 

 the day basswood (one of our best 

 honey-producing trees) opened. Previ- 

 ously I had hived a single swarm in an 

 empty hive and concluded to devote 

 them to extracted honey. 



The man worked 16 days at $1.75 

 per day, and I extracted, during those 

 16 days, honey enough from this swarm 

 to pay the man for his work. I state 

 this to show that one new swarm of bees 

 was equivalent to myself in the hay- 

 field ; yet how many keeping from 30 to 

 50 colonies of bees leave them to go 

 into the hay and harvest field, and then 

 tell us bee-keeping is not profitable? 

 You can hire a man to take your place 

 in the field, but if you expect to become 

 master of the bee-business, so as to 

 make it pay, you cannot hire a man to 

 take your place in the apiary during the 

 honey season. 



But to return: In 1874, my honey 

 was sold so as to bring $970 free of all 

 expenses. At this time I began to think 

 of giving up the farm, but finally con- 

 cluded to hold on to it one year more. 

 After deducting the expenses of the bees 

 from the sales, I found I had the next 

 year (1875) the amount of $1,431, and 

 hesitated no longer, but gave up farm- 

 ing and embarked in the bee-business as 

 an occupation. 



Without going into further detail I 

 find that after deducting all expenses 

 except my time, I have $17,982 as the 

 sum total for 18 years of bee-keeping, 

 since they began to more than pay their 

 way ; keeping on an average only 50 

 colonies, spring count, each year. This 

 will give me a salary of $999 a year, as 

 will be conceded by all. 



But what about the first four years 

 during which I was experimenting, read- 

 ing and thinking about bees all my wake- 

 ful hours, many of them hours when I 

 ought to have been asleep, giving the 

 subject as much or more study than any 

 lawyer ever spent on his profession ? To 

 be sure the bees paid their way, but to 

 what shall I look for my pay? To be 

 just I must divide my $17,982 by 22 

 years, which gives me about $817 

 a year as the real pay I received for 

 my labor. Is this enough pay for the 

 labor performed ? Well, many would 

 not be satisfied with it, and multitudes 

 would be glad to receive such a salary. 



One of the largest honey-producers of 

 our State, once said to me, "that a man 



who was capable of successfully manag- 

 ing such an apiary would command 

 $1,000 salary a year in any business." 

 If we accept this statement as a fact, 

 then I should have been better off in 

 this world's goods if I had never kept 

 bees. But when I turn my eyes to the 

 thousands who do not get one-half $817 

 a year, working in factories, in the shop, 

 on the farm, and doing drudgery of all 

 kinds and descriptions, I turn my eyes 

 back with pleasure to this fascinating 

 and health-giving pursuit — bee-keeping 

 — and say : It is enough ; I am satisfied. 



In conclusion, let me say, if a person 

 is not willing to spend the time on the 

 bees which they require, he had better 

 keep out of the business, for sooner or 

 later he will turn from it in disgust, if 

 it is undertaken with the idea that "bees 

 work for nothing and board themselves." 

 — N. Y. Voice. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



Overhauling the Bees, Queen- 

 Rearing, Honey.Prophets. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY A. N. DRAPER. 



Mr. A. Emmons, of Greenfield, Ills., 

 is here making me a little visit. We 

 have been overhauling the bees some- 

 what this afternoon, and I find that 

 they have considerably more honey than 

 I expected to find. Also, there is con- 

 siderable brood in the hives, but there is 

 not nearly as many bees in the hives as 

 there was last year at this time. As he 

 is intending to stay several days, we 

 will overhaul the out-apiaries. 



I did not move my bees to the lake 

 this fall to secure the crop of Spanish- 

 needle honey ; as I was very busy at the 

 time it ought to have been done with 

 other work that I could not put off. 



DOOLITTLE QUEEN-CELL CUPS. 



I have put in a good deal of time this 

 summer rearing queens. Almost every 

 queen that I have in my apiaries now, 

 has been reared in the " Doolittle queen- 

 cell cups." I think, perhaps, that this 

 accounts for so much brood this late in 

 the season. I have taken a good deal 

 of pains in making my queen-cell cups, 

 to select nice, light-colored wax. Then, 

 another thing that has contributed to 

 light-colored queens has been in select- 

 ing combs of brood that were light- 

 colored, to lift into the upper stories. 

 That is, I would select combs that had 

 brood in them for the first time to place 



