THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



341 



another. His plans for washing, drying, 

 labeling and packing his jars are original, 

 novel and decidedly expeditious, but 1 

 won't forestall him by describing them. 

 as he is to tell the readers of the Review 

 how he raises big crops of honey with the 

 least possible labor, and then, more im- 

 portant than all, how, in the fall and win- 

 ter months, he sells these crops, and 

 thousands of pounds besides, at the high- 

 est possible price. 



1 have known, in a general way, for 

 some time, that this Northern friend of 

 ours was making a great success along 

 these lines, but it was not until 1 had the 

 pleasure of several days in his company, 

 visiting his apiaries, and packing house, 

 seeing his plans and processes put into 

 actual operation, and making photographs 

 of most of them, that 1 fully realized how 

 far he was in advance of most of us. 



Bee-Keeping as a Business 



(Read Ly the editor at the Harrisburg convention.) 

 I have been asked to talk about out- 

 apiaries. I have not yet had sufficient 

 experience with out-apiaries to give much 

 of a talk on that subject, so I will take a 

 broader subject, that of "Bee-Keeping as 

 a Business." 



The first step is that of learning the 

 business. Most of the failures in bee- 

 keeping as a business is in launching out 

 too widely with only a narrow experience. 

 As to how that experience shall be gained 

 is another question, but it must first be 

 obtained, in some way, just as surely as 

 the physician, lawyer, or architect, must 

 learn their professions before starting in 

 business. The quickest and most satis- 

 factory method is that of working with 

 some experienced, successful specialist; 

 bi't it is a noteworthy fact that most of 

 our specialists have begun in a small way, 

 and slowly and laboriously, but, perhaps 

 pleasantly, climbed up the ladder without 

 any boosts except those gathered from 

 books, journals and visits to the apiaries 

 of other men. A man starts with a few 

 colonies. The bees and his knowledge 



gradually increase until he has perhaps 

 75 or 100 colonies. There he stops. He 

 knows the business of managing an apiary 

 from A to Z, but he lacks the nerve, or 

 confidence in himself, or in the business, 

 to branch out still further; to drop all 

 other entangling alliances, and make a 

 sole business of bee-keeping. The spec- 

 ialist in any line can always out do the 

 man of many trades. This is a self-evi- 

 dent proposition. The man who succeeds 

 is the one who concentrates his energies, 

 his capital, and his time. 



Not every man is situated properly for 

 making a sole business of bee-keeping; 

 and it may not be desirable nor advisable 

 that he change the conditions, even if it 

 were, possible. These are some of the 

 points that each man must decide for 

 him.self. One thing is certain: No man 

 ought to ever attempt bee-keeping as a 

 sole business in a poor locality. The 

 foundation and corner stone of bee-keep- 

 ing as a business is a good location. 

 Without it, all else is in vain. With it, 

 many other things may be neglected. 

 The man in a good location will always 

 wear the robes of purple. 



Having the location, the next step is to 

 stock it with the best strain of bees. 

 Every bee-keeper of experience knows 

 that there is just as much difference in 

 bees as in other kinds of stock. There 

 are scrub bees just as there are scrub 

 poultry, cattle and sheep. In our North- 

 ern Michigan apiaries we had, in one 

 apiary, 50 colonies of a distinct strain 

 that increased to 104 colonies, and stored 

 2,700 pounds of surplus, while 60 colon- 

 ies of ordinary bees in the same apiary 

 increased to only 80 colonies and stored 

 about 2.000 pounds of surplus. These 

 bees were all in the same yard the pre - 

 vious season, treated the same, wintered 

 in the same cellar, and treated the same 

 in the spring. The only difference was in 

 the strain of bees. Now, it requires no 

 more hives, combs, nor labor to care for 

 thoroughbred, first-class bees than it does 

 to care for scrubs. It costs no more to 

 raise such bees, for the bees to rear the 



