WHY KEEP BEES 13 



They are a care-free sort of crop if you 

 want to consider it that way. I knew a 

 man once who taught school in a little 

 Indiana city and kept bees "on the side." 

 He managed to keep busy and out of mis- 

 chief during nine months of the year by 

 teaching school, for which labor he re- 

 ceived the sum of nine hundred dollars 

 per annum. The other three months of 

 the year he played around a bit with some 

 two hundred colonies of bees and his av- 

 erage crop netted him something like 

 twelve hundred dollars. Don't jump to 

 the conclusion that you, too, can without 

 experience make one hundred dollars a 

 month out of two hundred colonies of 

 bees. You can't do it. I know, because 

 I tried it ten years ago and lost my "roll" 

 doing it. Since then I have been content 

 to keep a few colonies, partly for the good 

 they do in the orchard, partly for what 

 honey I can get and to a very consider- 

 able extent because the creatures are so 

 eternally interesting. Whether you de- 



