Women as Bee-Keepers. q 
tomed to out-door labor, and by midsummer found myself 
as well able to endure the heat of the sun as my husband, 
who has been accustomed to it all his life. Previously, to 
attend an open air picnic was to return with a headache. 
* * * My own experience in the apiary has been a source 
of interest and enjoyment far exceeding my anticipations.” 
Although Mrs. Baker commenced with but two colonies 
of bees, her net profits the first season were over $100; the 
second year but a few cents less than $300; and the third 
year about $250. “ The proof of the pudding is in the eat- 
ing ;” and such words as those above show that apiculture 
offers special inducements to our sisters to become either 
amateur or professional apiarists. At the present time 
almost every State has women bee-keepers, whose success 
has won attention. True it is, that in neatness and deli- 
cacy of manipulation, the women far surpass the men. The 
nicest honey produced in Michigan, year after year, comes 
from the apiary of two ladies whom I believe are peers of 
any bee-keepers in our country. 
IMPROVES THE MIND AND THE OBSERVATION. 
Successful apiculture demands close and accurate obser- 
vation, and hard, continuous thought and study, and this, 
too, in the wondrous realm of nature. In all this, the 
apiarist receives manifold and substantial advantages. In 
the cultivation of the habit of observation, a person be- 
comes constantly more able, useful and susceptible to pleas- 
ure—results which also follow as surely on the habit of 
thought and study. It is hardly conceivable that the wide- 
awake apiarist who is so frequently busy with his wonder- 
working comrades of the hive, can ever be lonely, or feel 
time hanging heavily on his hands. The mind is occupied 
and there is no chance for exzuz. The whole tendency of 
such thought and study, where nature is the subject, is to 
refine the taste, elevate the desires, and ennoble manhood. 
Once get our youth, with their susceptible natures, engaged 
in such wholesome study, and we shall have less reason to 
fear the vicious tendencies of the street, or the luring vices, 
and damning influences of the saloon, Thus apiculture 
spreads an intellectual feast that even the old philosophers 
