328 



THE BEE-KEEPER'S REVIEW 



which we succeeded in wintering without 

 loss. The following year these were in- 

 creased to 44 colonies. The next year 

 the number went up to 88 colonies, and 

 it was three years before we had a loss 

 of a single colony or queen in wintering. 

 At the end of five years we had 200 col- 

 onies. 



I remained at home, and ran the apiary 

 for both comb and extracted honey, until 

 I was 23 years old, when I started out 

 for myself with nothing except my bare 

 hands and my experience. I began opera- 

 tions by going in debt for 44 colonies, 

 moving them to Boyne Falls, and starting 

 what is now my Charlevoix County yard. 

 These bees produced a little over 5,000 

 pounds of honey that year. I bought 87 

 more colonies that fall, built my first bee 

 cellar, wintered the bees successfully, 

 and, the following year, secured 11,000 

 pounds of honey. I have been in business 

 for myself six years, and now have three 

 apiaries, a wife and two boys. My head- 

 quarters are at Petoskey; and my nearest 

 apiary is 20 miles away. The honey is 

 all shipped home where it is bottled for 

 the retail trade, along with the thousands 

 of pounds that 1 buy each year. The 

 wing at the left in the picture is devoted 

 to the bottling of honey. Besides this, 

 there is another wing back of this that 

 does not show in the picture. 



So much by way of introduction. Next 

 month I will take up the description of 

 the liquefying of honey, washing and dry- 

 ing of bottles, filling, labeling, packing, 

 selling, etc. These articles will run 

 through the winter, then, early in the 

 spring I will take up the out door work of 

 the apiary. This plan will make the ar- 

 ticles more seasonable. 



Petoskey, Mich., Nov. 4, 1907. 



[1 think that this much can be said of 

 bee-keeping: That there is no other busi- 

 ness in which a man can engage with no 

 capital except a knowledge of the busi- 

 ness, and make so great a success in so 

 short a time. I recently received a letter 

 from a well-known Western bee-keeper, 

 which was a heart to heart talk (not for 

 publication) in which he gave me a con- 

 densed, financial history of his bee-keep- 

 ing life. He had made a success of bee- 

 keeping, when an unfortunate venture in 

 another line of business swept away the 

 accumulations of his lifetime, and left him 

 500 dollars in debt. He then (in 1900) 

 went back to his first love, taking bees on 

 shares to get a start, and he has since 

 then produced a.nS sold $27,000 worth 

 of honey. I, won't tell how many be0s he 

 now owns, or you might guess who he is. 

 — Editor.] 



;=s^>^^f^^:g|;-^A;^^r«^ 



Let Us Educate the People to Pay a 

 Good Price for Honey. 



W. K. MORRISON 



FRIEND Hutchinson:— Either you or I 

 hold peculiar views on the subject of 

 honey, for, in a late issue of the Review, 

 you state that honey is a luxury with 

 most people, and then indicate that this 

 is the reason why it will never command 

 a high price. You and I have evidently 



been reared in different schools of experi- 

 ence, for the idea that luxuries are some- 

 what expensive is very firmly fixed in my 

 mind. 



Now, honey is very far from being ex- 

 pensive at present prices. It is not nearly 

 so dear as butter, -which is not, in any 



