18 MANUAL OP THE APIARY. 



our very lives, demand that we should eat sweets. It is a 

 truth that our sugars, and especially our commercial syrups, 

 are so adulterated as to be often poisonous. The apiary, in 

 . lieu of these, gives us one of the most delicious and whole- 

 some of sweets, which has received merited praise, as food fit 

 for the gods, from the most ancient time till the present day. 

 To ever have within reach the beautiful, immaculate comb, 

 or the equally grateful nectar, right from the extractor, is 

 certainly a blessing of no mean order. We may thus supply 

 our families and friends with a most necessary and desirable 

 food element, and this with no cloud of fear from vile, poi- 

 sonous adulterations. 



WHAT SUCCESSFUL BEB-KJEEPING REQUIEES. 



MENTAL EFFORT. 



No one should commence this business who is not willing 

 to read, think and study. To be sure, the ignorant and un- 

 thinking may stumble on success for a time, but sooner or 

 later, failure will set her seal upon their ' efforts. Those of 

 our apiarists who have studied the hardest, observed the 

 closest, and thought the deepest, have even passed the late 

 terrible winters with but slight loss. 



Of course the novice will ask, How and what shall I 

 study ? 



EXPERIENCE NECESSARY. 



Nothing will take the place of real experience. Commence 

 with a few colonies, even one or two is best, and make the 

 bees your companions at every possible opportunity. Note 

 every change, whether of the bees, their development, or 

 work, and then by earnest thought strive to divine the cause. 



LEARN FROM OTHERS. 



Great good will also come from visiting other apiarists. 

 Note their methods and apiarian apparatus. Strive by con- 

 versation to gain new and valuable ideas, and gratefully adopt 

 whatever is found, by comparison, to be an improvement upon 

 your own past system and practice. 



