ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 3 
more in the man than in the business. If the bee-keeper in the future 
will take our leading bee journals he can, through their advice, shun so 
many troubles that we older men had to bear that it is almost like 
another business—not but that it is still subject to many discouraging 
conditions; and our inability to have any control over the season is and 
always will be its worst feature. But all lines of business have some 
troubles with which to contend. When the farmer loses his stock it is 
hard and costly to replace, and it often takes some time to do it; or when 
«1S crops are ruined by untimely frosts or protracted drouths the loss is 
hard to bear and overcome. But when the bee-keeper loses a large per 
cent of his bees he still has the hives and combs left; and if he has some 
good colonies he can soon have his original number again with but little 
expense, and usually secure some surplus besides. 
Here is one great advantage our business has over many others. 
Taking our bees safely through long cold winters and very changeable 
spring weather, with small loss, has been a hard problem to solve; but 
this part of the business is now so much better understood by nearly all 
bee-keepers than it was a few years ago that we feel much encouraged 
in eventually overcoming other troubles as we have this. 
Hach year brings some new methods perfected whereby our business 
is placed on a more reliable basis than it formerly was, enabling us to 
produce honey cheaper than we ever could before. Still, we have some 
dark clouds of losses and disappointments hovering over us. I have seen 
many through which it was almost impossible to see a ray of silver lin- 
ing; but as the mariner’s compass will guide the ship safely through 
ocean storms, so will continual perseverence lead you on and on through 
the trying hours until a clear unclouded sunset welcomes you to a land 
of rest. 
February, 1907. 
WHAT CONSTITUTES A “FAIRLY GOOD LOCALITY”? IS IT BEST 
TO ALLOW THE FIRST HONEY TO FILL THE 
BROOD-CHAMBER? 
It may not be out of place for me to describe what I consider a fairly 
good locality. It is this: 
Any place, after June 1, that will furnish a harvest for 35 days, 
sufficient for one colony of Italian bees of a good honey-gathering strain 
to gather a surplus of 100 lbs. of extracted honey, is what I call a fairly 
good location, and is as good a locality as this is; and all that we have 
been able to secure more than that has been done by adapting certain 
methods which the majority of bee-keepers have known but little about 
until recently. 
Now as to the number of colonies that this or any other fairly good 
location can furnish a good surplus for. That is a problem that no one 
has ever been able to solve. I know that this location has furnished and 
can furnish a surplus of just as many pounds of honey per colony for 750 
