THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



1S3 



disadvantages of specialty, it is much more 

 like manufacturing. The bee-keeper need 

 not be a producer. He may be eminently 

 successful and know nothing about botany, 

 not even the physiology of the honey bees he 

 keeps. He may be an expert in botany and 

 bee-physiology and still be an ignominious 

 failure as a honey producer. We know this 

 is true from observation. We have seen it. 

 A bee-keeper must be or become somewhat 

 of a mechanic. His work is not at all like 

 farming or fruit raising: it is not in the 

 ground at all. To be sure the honey secretes 

 in plants growing out of the ground, but 

 that makes no ditt'erence. He could be a 

 successful bee-keeper if he had been con- 

 fined between prison walls and had never 

 seen the ground. He would soon find out 

 that the bees went out somewhere and 

 brought back honey. The thing for him to 

 learn is proper mechanical arrangement 

 inside the apiary. So we see that honey 

 raising is almost exactly parallel to and like 

 manufacturing, and so far as this discussion 

 is concerned, it would be much more appro- 

 priate to call the apiarist a manufacturer 

 than to call him a producer; 



Perhaps it is necessary in order that we 

 may get a clear idea of bee-keeping to go 

 back to an old hobby of mine, or in other 

 words, to a new presentation of an old fact 

 as I gave it to the Michigan State Bee-keep- 

 ers' Association, in Kalamazoo, about fifteen 

 years ago. I remember well how curious 

 the members looked, and yet how unable 

 they all were to make any answer to the new 

 presentation as I gave it at that time. I 

 had been in the bee business some six years, 

 and at that session some one spoke of a 

 report of a large yield of honey from one 

 hive, that Brother Doolittle or some other 

 bee-keeiier had sent to the papers. I rose 

 and said that such reports might be true, 

 and still the reporter make a dismal failure 

 of the business. I said, ''Let us right about 

 face and look at the business endwise. It is 

 not a question at all of how much honey one 

 colony of bees can gather, nor any great 

 matter how many ten or a hundred can 

 gather. In good seasons they will gather a 

 good deal; in poor seasons they will give us 

 a bad deal. They cannot help it and we 

 cannot help it. Let us reason this way: 

 About how much honey is there secreted per 

 year, one year with another, in an area or 

 iield of a radius of three miles, say, or a 

 diameter of six miles, as that represents 

 about the profitable flight of bees. Well, in 

 a good locality there is a good deal of honey. 

 Enough so that, at the present i)rices, one 

 year with another, at least !|1,CK)U worth of 

 surplus honey could be taken and sold, be- 

 sides what would be needed to feed the 

 stock. Now how much capital and labor is 

 needed to harvest that crop?" Now that is 

 where bee-keeping is, all in a nut shell, is it 

 not, Mr. Editor? And that i'B just what I 

 presented at that state convention about 

 fifteen years ago, and that was before you 

 ever kept bees, I guess. At least it was be- 

 fore I ever met you. 



Well now you see it requires a great deal 

 of planning to know how to build the cheap- 

 est buildings, get the cheapest hives and 



implements and the cheapest everything 

 else, and to do all the work with the least 

 labor required to gather this honey. When 

 I say "cheap," for heaven's sake don't un- 

 derstand me as meaning poor goods. The 

 best thing is the cheapest, if the price is not 

 too great. I mean the cheapest in the end. 

 First get your locality. Be sure aud get one 

 that some one else has not got, nor even got 

 a piece of, and the more bees you keep the 

 less likelihood will there be of some other ' 

 fellow entering your field, or of succeeding 

 if he does. Then get your buildings. Don't 

 put too much money into them, but put in 

 I'lioiKjIi to have them good, roomy and con- 

 venient. Next get your hives and imple- 

 ments. And right here comes the vital 

 point. You will find yourself compelled, in 

 order to compete, to use such hives and 

 minor implements as will do the necessary 

 work speedily. The puttering bee-keeper 

 has had his day. You must have things ar- 

 ranged so that you can work two hundred 

 colonies, spring count, all alone, whether 

 you are raising comb or extracted honey, 

 and you can do it and do it easy, provided 

 you have the right implements, fixtures and 

 methods. 



The same physical and mental tact will be 

 needed to succeed in this, as in other kinds 

 of business. You need not be alarmed 

 about the price of honey. It will always 

 bring a price between what you can do well 

 at, and the other fellow will fail at. When 

 he can exist, you are getting rich. When he 

 is failing you are doing fairly well. Now 

 how does the specialty question look? Do 

 you think that some farmer or professional 

 man is going to be able to compete with 

 you? Not a bit of it. No man who runs 

 any other business which demands any con- 

 siderable part of his attention will compete 

 with you long. You will cut his corners at 

 every turn. 



As usual, Mr. Editor, you have touched 

 most of the other points. Saving in tools 

 by running one business instead of two or 

 three, and clearness of thought upon the 

 subject when you are a specialist. I have 

 tried to present only a few different ideas 

 from those presented in your leader, and 

 those which I thought might be presented by 

 some of your other contributors. 



DowAGiAO, Mich., 



Oct. 2.5, 1889. 



Let the Secretary of Associations Get His 



Pay in "Honor." — The Relation that 



the "Union" Bears to Bee- 



Keeping. 



DB. A. B. MASON. 





,-'^UST a word more," Mr. Editor, is 

 -: jL what speakers say when they wish 

 fjlD to say a good deal, but I see I 



have said nothing about paying 

 the Secretary a "good salary," etc. I know 

 the Secretary "is the soul of an association," 

 and I don't object to having the members 

 pay an additional fifty cents as membership 



