244 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Feb. 15 



ness: still, if rightly followed, it will give as 

 good returns one year with another as any 

 business of a rural natui'e, considering the 

 amount of capital invested and labor requir- 

 ed. About five dollars per colony, spring 

 count, clear of all expenses, is a moderate 

 estimate of the profit from the business — that 

 is, if run wholly for the production of honey 

 without any special care to see what might 

 be accomplished; but if run by an expert on 

 high-grade methods, then 15 or 20 dollars 

 per colony can frequently be made. 



Here is where the specialist has a great ad- 

 vantage over the man who divides his capital 

 and time into two or more channels. These 

 men soon find that they have twice or three 

 times the trouble to contend with, and only 

 a third or a half the capital to use in making 

 a success of anyone of the several lines they 

 have taken up; but the lack of necessary cap- 

 ital is only a small factor, for that can be got 

 at the bank. But the necessary intellect, 

 business capacity, and experience can not be 

 borrowed, and without these elements to 

 success there is only one alternative, and 

 that is and always has been simply failure. 



Then there is another thing to take into 

 consideration. It is pleasant to have a pay- 

 ing business that requires your time only 

 about half of the year, and that the pleasant 

 part, when you can be outdoors and enjoy 

 all the pleasures of nature's spring and sum- 

 mer. With me it is a real pleasure to breathe 

 free air unsoiled by either bell or whistle 

 calling me to labor. 



I will now take it for granted that you have 

 spent one or two seasons in learning all that 

 you could during that time from some com- 

 petent person, and you slill want to follow 

 bee-keeping. I can not advise you to go 

 slow, as some do. That "go slow" is a 

 blight on any man. First be sure that you 

 are right, then go ahead with willing hands 

 and a good stock of perseverance ever ready 

 to overcome the unexpected troubles as you 

 meet them. Make up your mind from the 

 first to take good bee literature; have good 

 bees; use good tools and hives, and then pro- 

 duce good honey. Take pride in your busi- 

 ness. If you have taken up queen-rear- 

 ing, forming nuclei for sale, or inci-easing 

 your colonies for sale, or producing comb or 

 extracted honey, don't forget to look well to 

 quality. Then advertise and let the public 

 know what you have, and you will in a short 

 time not only surprise your friends but youi"- 

 self with your success. You now have a 

 clear track and a light grade compared with 

 what some of us older men had fifty years 

 ago. We then had a hard time of it — no bee 

 journals, no Italian bees, no comb founda- 

 tion, no honey-extractors, no bee-smokers, 

 and no market for the little honey we se- 

 cured. 



How different now, with our large markets 

 established, where our honey is annually 

 sought for, either in small lots or by the car- 

 load, and with our new inventions and im- 

 proved methods enabling us to produce five 

 times the amount per colony we did then! 

 To me bee-keeping now seems like quite a 



good business. Still, I never advise one to 

 take it up, not even my own sons, for I have 

 always thought that, when it comes to choos- 

 ing a life business, each one should choose 

 for himself. While it is true that man to a 

 great extent makes his circumstances, still it 

 is also true that circumstances to a great ex- 

 tent make the man. 



I am well acquainted with a man who was 

 born on a farm, and worked hard on it for 

 several years after he was married. He was 

 temperate and of excellent habits, working 

 early and late; but still his farm life was a 

 perfect failure. After toiling in close cir- 

 cumstances for several years his wife's friends 

 got him a situation in New York city. Then 

 the scale turned. He struck a place that God 

 had fitted him for, and for the past thirteen 

 years he has had a net income of over twenty 

 thousand dollars a year. I speak of this 

 case to show that many of us are trying to 

 to make a success of some business to which 

 we are not at all adapted; also to show the 

 importance of trying hard while young to 

 start right. 



You should look upon your business as 

 your bank; and whenever you can add a dol- 

 lar to it, do so, and it will return in due 

 time many fold. Take pride in having a 

 good apiary, and remember there is far 

 more in the man than in the business. If 

 the bee-keeper in the future will take our 

 leading bee journals he can, through their 

 advice, shun so many troubles that we older 

 men had to bear that it is almost like another 

 business — not but that it is still subject to 

 many discouraging conditions; and our ina- 

 bility to have any control over the season is 

 and always will be its worst feature. But 

 all lines of business have some troubles with 

 which to contend. When the farmer loses 

 his stock it is hard and costly to replace, and 

 it often takes some time to do it; or when 

 his crops are ruined by untimely frosts or 

 protracted drouths the loss is hard to bear 

 and overcome. But when the bee-keeper 

 loses a large per cent of his bees he still has 

 the hives and combs left; and if he has some 

 good colonies he can soon have his original 

 number again with but little expense, and 

 usually secure some surplus besides. 



Here is one great advantage our business 

 has over many others. Taking our bees 

 safely through long cold winters and very 

 changeable spring weather, with small loss, 

 has been a hard problem to solve; but this 

 part of the business is now so much better 

 understood by nearly all bee-keepers than it 

 was a few years ago that we feel much en- 

 couraged in eventually overcoming other 

 troubles as we have this. 



Each year brings some new methods per- 

 fected whereby our business is placed on a 

 more reliable basis than it formerly was, 

 enabling us to produce honey cheaper than 

 we ever could befoi'e. Still, we have some 

 dark clouds of losses and disappointments 

 hovering over us. I have seen many through 

 which it was almost impossible to see a ray 

 of silver lining; but as the mariner's compass 

 will guide the ship safely through oc^an 



