BEE KEEPING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 



89 



stated ° that Massachusetts can support approximately 40,000 colonies 

 of bees. This number, producing an average of 35 pounds of honey 

 to the colony, would supply 1,400,000 pounds, or 700 tons, of honey a 

 year, contrasted with 73 tons. This crop would not be especially 

 burdensome, and, divided among the people, each would have less 

 than a half pound a year. Furthermore, there is no immediate 

 danger of the production of any such amount. 



Table IV. — Honey and wax production reported in Massachusetts. 



Date. 



Honey. 



Wax. 



Sources of data. 



1839 



Pounds. 



Pounds. 

 1,196 



o59,508 

 2, 324. 5 

 3,289 

 2,454 

 1,195 

 2,463 

 1,690 

 6,250 

 1,289 



U. S. Census Rept. for 1840. 



U. S. Census Rept. for 1850. 



3d Ann. Rept. Sec. Mass. Bd. Agric. for 1856. 



U. S. Census Rept. for 1860. 



13th Ann. Rept. Sec. Mass. Bd. Agric. for 1866. 



U. S. Census Rept. for 1870. 



U. S. Census Rept. for 1880. 



U. S. Census Rept. for 1890. 



U. S. Census Rept. for 1900. 



1849 





1855 



73. 677 

 59,125 

 80,356 

 25,299 

 49, 397 

 90, 929 

 109,050 

 • 6145,257 



1859 



1865 



1869 



1879 



1889 



1899 



1906 







a Includes both honev and wax product. 



6 Extracted, 36,597 pounds ; comb, 108,660 pounds. 



WAX CROP. 



It is customary for bee keepers to save their old combs from year 

 to year before rendering them, which produces an annual variation 

 in the product. Futhermore, outbreaks of bee diseases cause much 

 more comb to be rendered. Severe winters, which frequently result 

 in a loss of bees, usually produce a relative increase in the wax 

 output the following year. It is therefore difficult to calculate a 

 representative annual product of wax. The commercial importance 

 of the wax crop, and the relative returns from it as compared with 

 honey, are gradually becoming more and more realized; therefore, 

 as the honey product increases it is to be expected that the wax out- 

 put will proportionally increase. Table IV presents all the recorded 

 information on wax production in Massachusetts. 



SOURCES OF HONEY. 



Too little attention is given the nectar-yielding flora, even among 

 those who seek a livelihood in the production of honey. Although 

 it is sometimes difficult to learn the sources from which bees get 



°U. S. D. A., Bur. Ent. Bui. 75, Pt. Ill, p. 23. Allowing an average of 100 

 to 125 acres to support a colony of bees, based on experience of large bee 

 keepers who maintain a series of outyards, and eliminating 500 square miles as 

 probably unavailable for bee pasturage, there remain 7,814 square miles, or 

 5,000,960 acres, for forage in Massachusetts, which would support approximately 

 40,000 to 50,000 colonies of bees. 

 78013°— Bull. 75—11 7 



