34 FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



]ai't of llie honey gatliercd by the bees. Ailriaii Getaz computes 

 that at least 200 pounds d!' honey is needed for home consump- 

 tion l)y an average colony. So far as enthusiasm and interest 

 are concerned, T do not believe my stock is any less of those 

 com.modities than it was fifty years ago. A born beekeeper 

 never loses his enthusiasm. 



TOTAL CROP RATHER THAN PER COLONY. 



Some one may possibly ask, " If you can do so much better 

 with 07 colonies, why not restrict yourself to that number 1 " 

 But I can't do any better; at least not in any average season. 

 For it is not the yield per colony I care for, unless it should 

 be to boast over it; wliat I care for is the total amount of net 

 money I can get from my bees. In the year 1897 my average 

 per colony was 713/4 jDounds, only about three-fifths as much as 

 in 1881 ; but as I had in 1897 239 colonies, my total crop was 

 17,l."iO pounds, or more than twice as much as in 1881. 



A BAD YEAR. 



In the year 1887 my crop of honey \\ as a little more than 

 half a pound per colony, and in the fall I fed 2802 pounds of 

 gTanulated sugar to keep the bees from starving in winter. 

 But I could not then tell, neither can I now tell whether it was 

 because the season was so bad or because the field was over- 

 stocked, for I had .363 colonies in four apiaries. Possibly if 1 

 had had only half as many bees, the balance might have been on 

 the other side of the ledger. But I don't know. 



Somewhere there surely is a limit beyond which one cannot 

 profitably increase the number of colonies in an apiary, but just 

 where that limit is can perhaps never be learned. If I were 

 obliged to make a guess, I should say about 100 colonies in one 

 apiary is the limit in my locality. 



If I were to live my life over again, and knew in advance 

 that I should be a beekeepei-, I never would locate in a place 

 with only one sojice of surplus. When white clover fails here 

 the bottom drops out. Unfortunately th° years in which the 

 bottom dro;"s out ha\e l)een unpleasantly rLe(|uent. 



