16 THE BUSINESS OF BEE-KEEPING 
hundred dollars’ worth of honey, which quite probably was equal 
to his salary. Should he decide to devote all his time to the bees, 
he can care for double his present number. While this was an 
unusually favorable season, with double the number of colonies, 
his average production will leave little risk to run. 
A General Farmer.—One of the most successful bee-keepers 
of the Middle West is a young man who abandoned general farm- 
ing because the heavy expenses necessary to pay cash rent, hired 
help, buy expensive machinery, and replace the worn-out horses 
made it difficult to get ahead. This man does nearly all his own 
work, thus keeping down expenses. He produces from twenty- 
five thousand to forty thousand pounds of honey per year, which 
he sells to jobbers at wholesale prices. By developing a retail 
market he could increase his income materially, though it is good 
at present. 
Many Others.—It would be possible to multipy these exam- 
ples indefinitely, but these men who have turned to bee-keeping 
from so many different walks of life should be sufficient. It 
would be possible to cite also numberless examples of those, who, 
by plunging without experience, have failed, but most of the 
failures have been because the adventurer did not use good 
business judgment. 
As an Exclusive Business.—The men who are engaged in 
honey production as an exclusive business are getting results 
equal to those derived from other lines of agriculture, with less 
capital invested and with less risk. The fact that the business 
is open to men of small capital, who are unable to engage in 
general farming because of the larger outlay required, surely 
makes it desirable to encourage the development of the industry 
as far as possible. Bee-keeping, as a business, requires high- 
grade talent, and comparatively few men succeed in making it 
profitable as an exclusive line. This is not the fault of the busi- 
ness but of the men. It looks so easy that men are not willing to 
serve an apprenticeship, or to take the necessarv time to master 
the business in all its details, as they would expect to do in other 
lines. 
