ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 7 
PROFITS IN BEB-KEEPING. 
MODERN METHODS REDUCE THE COST OF PRODUCTION. 
Some may take issue with my statement as to the net profit in the 
work—namely, $5.00 per colony, spring count, clear of all expenses. 
Well, as to that I am sure a very large per cent will question that state- 
ment, and I will admit that perhaps not ten per cent of the honey- 
producers of the United States are making that amount per colony. I 
will also admit that, during the thirty years of my comb-honey experi- 
ence, I did not make $2.00 per colony clear of expenses from the many 
colonies I had then. Neither did I make $3.00 per colony clear of ex- 
penses in producing extracted honey during the first several years I was 
engaged in that business. But during the last few years there have been 
great changes made in producing honey. First, our bees are now bred 
from much better honey-gathering strains than formerly. 
Then some have studied out and perfected certain methods in caring 
for their weak colonies in early spring, so we now have no more losses 
in that way, and we have certain ways of making increase whereby not 
a bit of brood is lost—not even an egg. There has also been great im- 
provement in extracting and curing the honey, which has much to do 
with selling it readily at a good price; and a few of us have dearly 
learned the folly of all that out-apiary expense, such as keeping several 
horses, paying dear rent for a place to set the bees, and losing a large 
part of the working force from each out-yard in absconding swarms. 
It is only a few years since it cost me 4 cents per lb., cash out, to 
produce extracted honey. How different now, with these improved methods 
put into practice! 
According to our books, during the past three seasons we have pro- 
duced 181,237 lbs. of honey. Now, when all expenses were deducted, 
such as hired help, including board, barrels for honey, sugar fed in the 
spring to stimulate early breeding, interest, and taxes on $5,000 capital 
invested, our own labor, including delivering on the cars at this station, 
we find the actual cost to have been a fraction less than one cent per 
pound. 
Now, when honey has been and can be produced at one cent per 
pound, mostly with hired help, it is not far out of the way to state that 
bees will pay $5.00 per colony, clear of all expenses. But in order to 
do so you must learn how to reduce expenses to their lowest possible 
minimum, and produce honey in the largest possible quantities that a 
certain number of colonies can be made to do. 
The fact that thousands of bee-keepers are not making $2.00 per 
colony is no disparagement to the business. The same can be said of 
hundreds of farmers in this section, who are not making net $100 per 
year from their farms. But there is no reason why each could not be 
made to pay well if better methods were adopted. 
No, my friends, I don’t care to modify my statement in the least, 
that about $5.00 per colony, spring count, clear of all expenses, is a 
