298 



THE BEE-KEEPER'S REVIEW 



On several occasions I have found the 

 sentiment of the song- very true. 



BiRNAMwooD, Wis., Sep. 26, 1907. 



I No one knows, or ever will know, how 

 I have enjoyed the establishing and man- 

 agement of those apiaries in Northern 

 Michigan. In September, Elme: and I 

 camped out at the Morey yard while we 

 were extracting the honey. It was right 

 in the heig^ht of the wild blackberry har- 

 vest, and how we did revel in their deli- 

 ciousness. Great bushes as tall as my 

 head, growing in the shade, were fairly 

 bending- with their weight of black, glossy, 

 spicy fruit. In one place I picked a pint 

 without stirring- from my tracks. Morning, 

 noon and nig-ht we had great dishes of the 

 berries heaped up high and covered with 

 sugar and cream. The latter came from 

 a settler living near. Then there was 

 coffee, and bread and butter, and mealy 

 potatoes such as grow only in that north- 

 ern sand. 



The last trip, from which I am now re- 

 turning, was made to build a bee cellar 

 where we are to establish another yard. 

 I thought I had before seen gorgeous 

 autumn foliage, but those northern hill- 

 sides of maple, oak, elm, sumac, and 

 popple, bathed in the liquid gold of Octo- 

 ber's sunshine, surpass anything I have 

 ever seen in brilliancy, variety, and depth 

 of coloring. When we are coming home 

 at dusk, winding along the valley roads, 

 every hill a triumph of chromatic art, vista 

 after vista springs into view with each 

 turn of the road, the deepening twilight 

 throwing a purple gloom over the distant- 

 hills, until finally they fade and the stars 

 begin to glimmer — such sights fill ti-ie soul 

 with a quiet joy and peace that lifts it far 

 above business cares. 



But, as brother Cady says, it is all well 

 enough to wax poetical, but what about 

 the practical side, what about the "chink" ? 

 Certainly this question ought not to be 

 ignored. Before entering upon that, let 

 me make a little explanation. Mr. Cady 

 says that the establishment of the northern 

 apiaries has been, in one sense, an "effort " 



to demonstrate the truth of the doctrine 

 to "keep more bees." Perhaps, in a slight 

 degree, but the main impelling cause was 

 an intense, irresistible longing to be right 

 in the thick of the business, with my own 

 hands. I presume I became so full of en- 

 thusiasm on the subject that I talked 

 about it until I may have bored some peo- 

 ple. I was once expatiating to a young 

 bee-keeper upon the advantages of North- 

 ern Michigan as a place for establishing 

 apiaries, when he said: "I presume, if you 

 were ten years younger, we would soon 

 see you running a series of yards in that 

 region." This was the last straw. There 

 was a sting about this that stack. The 

 idea, that I was an old man, past the 

 time of life when 1 could take up new en- 

 terprises — I would show them ! And 

 right here let me say that the embarking 

 in this enterprise has made me a younger 

 man — physically and mentally. 1 suspect 

 that it is largely because the work has 

 been done in the spirit of joy, gladness 

 and enthusiasm. 



■ But I am not yet talking of ths "chink" 

 side of this venture. To be honest about 

 it, the time has not yet arrived when I 

 could show a balance sheet that would 

 fairiy represent the status of the business. 

 It has been only 1 8 months since my bro- 

 ther and myself first turned our hands 

 towards this venture; and we have poured 

 out both money and labor most freely. A 

 neighboring farmer who has often helped 

 us with his team once remarked: "Well, 

 you fellows must have lots of confidence 

 in the bse business by the way you put 

 your money into it !" But to ask us to 

 prove now. by a balance sheet, that 

 "keeping more bees," is profitable, would 

 be like going to a man who had bought a 

 new farm, fenced it, built a house and 

 barn, and cleared a few acres, and ask 

 him to prove by his experience, that farm- 

 ing was profitable. We have been looking 

 up locations, moving apiaries, building bee 

 cellars, transferring bees and buying 

 hives, foundation, and implements. This 

 year we bought GOO new hives, 600 lbs. 

 of foundation and three new, automatic, 



