102 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



Feb. 16, 1899. 



on the walls of the hive, just as in summertime the moisture 

 of the air settles on the outside of a pitcher of cold water. 

 Many think the best plan is to have what are called absorb- 

 ents, that is, packingf of some kind, over the frames so close 

 that it keeps the bees warm, and at the same time so open 

 that the moisture can escape up through the packing. 

 There is not so much need of this if the entrance is larg'e, 

 and perhaps the best thing you can now do is to increase 

 the entrance in .some way. If it can be done in no other 

 way, perhaps you can slip little wedges under the two front 

 corners, raising the hive 14 or % inch. 



2. (a) Possibly the same reason that makes the hives so 

 damp maj' account for the unusual amount of brood. The 

 bees are shut up too close ; haven't air enough, and that 

 makes them exert themselves trying to change the air in 

 the hive, and anything that excites to activity may start 

 breeding. Of course that's only a guess, without knowing 

 all the circumstances, (b) It's not at all certain that she'll 

 be better than others, (c) Probablj' the chances are that 

 the colony will be no better than, if as good as, others. 



3. Probabl5- not a great deal more. The benefit of a 

 flight once in three weeks will pay for the extra con- 

 sumption. 



4. Without knowing any more of . the case, I should 

 make a guess that one good way to get rid of the trouble 

 would be to have all your bees the same as that one of pure 

 Italians. When there is much robbing going on, it's not so 

 much that the robbers are of bad habits as it is that tempta- 

 tions have been thrown in their way. The fact that those 

 bees are hunting around even in chilly weather shows that 

 they're not lazy, and very likely you'll find them good 

 honey-gatherers. But they would hardl)' be fooling around 

 much in the cold if the other colonies had always promptly 

 repelled them. That colony is probablj- as wide-awake 

 about defending itself as it is at trying to rob others. If all 

 were like it, there would be little temptation to robbing, 

 and in chilly weather all would stay at home and mind their 

 own business. 



Proceeding's of the ColoFado State Bee-Keepers' 

 Convention. 



(CONTRIBUTED BY THE SECRETARV.) 

 [Contiaued from page 87.] 



THIRD DAY. 



An Adequate Income from Bees by Seven Months' Labor 

 Without Hiving. 



I shall not answer this question, but leave it as uncer- 

 tain as I find it. Nor shall I say anything original, but 

 rather aim to put it suggestively, so that you may answer it. 



Bee-keeping during the last few years has become less 

 profitable. We say that organization is the remedy. It is, 

 so far as financial returns are concerned. But when bee- 

 keeping becomes less profitable, all its advantages, not only 

 the financial ones, are threatened ; and the great advantage 

 of bee-keeping as an occupation is not so much the size of 

 the money returns, as the fact that it contributes in a far 

 more substantial and direct waj- than money does toward 

 true riches. 



The chief end of money is to purchase leisure ; that is, 

 the liberty to do what we can best do, without regard to the 

 means of subsistence. Bee-keeping gives us leisure during 

 a portion of each year without the necessity of hoarding up 

 money to purchase it. The specialist bee-keeper with an 

 income of $300 a year is a richer man than the city physi- 

 cian or lawyer with an income of $3,000. The latter may 

 save money with a view to retiring sometime and enjoying 

 the fruits of his labor ; but meanwhile the best years of his 

 life are slipping away ; his habits of mind become fixt, and 

 when his liberty does arrive, he is nothing more than a cog 

 in the social machinery — the treadmill theory of existence 

 has done its work. He is mentally crippled. He cannot work 

 without supporting himself with the crutch of routine. He 

 insists that crutches are a necessary portion of the human 

 anatomy. We often refer this unnatural condition to nat- 



ural causes, saying that he simply outgrows the enthusiasm 

 of youth ; but does that explain it all ? 



I think that to this habit of spending the best years of 

 one's life in the pursuit of money exclusivelj', is largely due 

 the veneration of work for work's sake, of mindless dili- 

 gence, which is so constantly- held before us by short-sighted 

 moralists. They fail to realize that the enthusiasm afforded 

 by spontaneous growth and activitj- is the highest possible 

 incentive to diligence, and to the undertaking of just as 

 much unnecessary drudgery, if not more, than the habit of 

 mindless routine ever inspires, and that the man thus in- 

 spired never outgrows his youth. 



But this must be practiced to become available. Train- 

 ing is required, just as truly in the one case as in the other. 

 One cannot swim without entering the water. One cannot 

 ride a bicycle by becoming a good horseman. The ability 

 to discover and apply one's tsest powers, and put them to 

 work, without the stimulus of getting something to eat, or 

 the artificial aid of habitual routine, is a hard thing to 

 learn ; and like other difficult things, must be practiced 

 earlj' in life to acquire proficiency. 



Not onlj- is it hard to learn, but we do not even get the 

 chance to learn it under ordinary circumstances. Society 

 tells us the only work is to work for a living, or to work to 

 get rich, and in accordance with this sentiment so manages 

 that almost all occupations absolutely must be followed 

 from daylight till dark, year in and year out, to be made a 

 success of at all : and if we do not watch out, we will fall 

 into the habit of believing this nonsense, and of regarding 

 this condition of things as one of the laws of the Medes and 

 Persians, which cannot change. 



Right here appears the essential superiority of bee- 

 keeping. It gives us a chance, not in the evening of life 

 when well-nigh impossible, but now, to acquire the fullness 

 of this attribute which distinguishes man from animals, 

 this untrammeled freedom, this fresh energy, which comes 

 from'regarding one's self as an intelligent instead of a me- 

 chanical portion of the universe. 



It is true, it does not give us the thing itself. It gives 

 no more than the chance to acquire it ; it gives the spare 

 time, that is all. But, as I say, most other occupations do 

 not give even this much. 



Therefore, it behooves us to jealously guard this charac- 

 teristic of bee-keeping from attack by the sordid and stupid 

 mechanical spirit of the age. We do not want profit re- 

 duced to such a small margin that onh' capitalists can keep 

 bees, when such numbers will be required as to keep one 

 man hard at work all the 3'ear round, besides others during 

 the swarming .season. We want to keep this precious pos- 

 session of leisure, freely given us without price in such 

 abundant measure, as would require many years' toil of the 

 best part of life to laj- up enough to purchase. 



Organization is the remedy for diminishing profits; 

 and in our occupation it is to some extent also a remedy 

 for diminishing leisure, by lessening the number of colo- 

 nies required to make a living, and so removing the neces- 

 sity for making hives and putting up sections all winter. 

 But the fight is an unequal one. The price of honey is 

 down now, and can scarcel)- be raised more than a trifle. 

 Every method must be tried to prevent that bondage to false 

 ideals to which so many other occupations have succumbed. 

 The production of the most honey by the least labor is no 

 less important than the sale of honey. Advanced methods 

 and short cuts should be discust just as much in our con- 

 ventions as business questions. 



Socialistic schemes are well enough in their way, but 

 they do not go to the bottom of the matter. As long as 

 money alone is workt for, and the opportunities of acquir- 

 ing leisure without money are ignored, it will become 

 harder to do anything without money. It is not true that 

 men do not get what they strive for ; they do get it, and 

 with a vengeance. They set up unthinking industry as the 

 ideal — and then have tlie inconsistency to complain when 

 the social conditions to which they have contributed react 

 by keeping them at routine work the whole time. If they 

 workt as hard and as unitedly for leisure as for money, they 

 would get it. 



Under present conditions, I think in most localities a 

 man who .sells his crop wholesale needs about 300 colonies 

 of bees, in say three different apiaries, to make a fair living 

 and have about five months of leisure, i. e., unfinancial 

 work. 



Of course, the management of swarming in out-api- 

 aries, in connection with getting as much surplus as possi- 

 ble, is the kernel of the matter. I will put it in the form of 

 a concrete question, and if that can be satisfactorily an- 

 swered, the question in general will be settled, and, inci- 



