CHAPTER XX, 



CONCLUSION. 



f|E often hear this question asked : "Are bees 

 profitable?" and the replies given are va- 



0^ rious, contradictory and amusing, varying 

 in accordance with the honesty, experience, skill 

 and success of the bee keeper. Such as have at- 

 tempted bee keeping vs^ith the old fashioned square 

 box hives, under the old system of management 

 based on fire and brimstone, will say there is no 

 profit in bees, and that you must not molest them 

 at all ; if you do, "they will run out, and you will 

 lose your luck." 



There is another class, who have adopted all the 

 extravagant fancies of the patent bee hive venders, 

 paying large sums of monej' for hives worse than 

 useless, with what are claimed to be patent fixtures 

 — expecting a sudden fortune as the result, and 

 found the whole thing a fraud. Perhaps they have 

 been duped in this way a half-dozen times or more, 

 and always with the same result. This class will 

 tell you emphatically, that everything pertaining to 

 bees is a humbug and a cheat — no money in them, 

 etc. 



In presenting the statements made in this work, 



