CHAPTER V 



COTTAGERS AND BEEKEEPING 



Beekeeping on modern lines is a rural industry especially 

 adapted to cottagers. The profits resulting from the 

 produce of a few hives if properly managed should pay 

 the rent and leave a trifle over. As an example, a 

 journeyman carpenter says that after paying all expenses, 

 " I generally manage in the worst of seasons to buy the 

 family a suit of clothes all round," — the family consist- 

 ing of eight all told. 



A Yorkshire farmer's wife made in 1900 j^io profit 

 from her bees, " and that with a lot less worry and work 

 than with any of their other stock." And, enlarging 

 upon this latter point, she quaintly remarks, "there is 

 no 'sitting up' with them, and they always swarm in 

 the middle of a fine day." 



There is also a moral side to the question, and the 

 cottager who embarks upon beekeeping soon comes 

 under its spell, his intelligence quickens and his 

 interests are enlarged. Cotton emphasises this point 

 somewhat in his preface to that most charming of all 

 bee-books, " My Bee Book." " Again," he says, speak- 

 ing of the labourer, " his bee hives are close to his 

 cottage door ; he will learn to like their sweet music 

 better than the dry squeaking of a pot-house fiddle, and 

 he may listen to it in the free open air with his wife and 

 children about him. They will be to him a countless 

 family. He will be sure to love them if he cares for 

 them, and they will love him too and repay all his pains." 



The chief difficulty confronting the ordinary cottager 



