ALEXANDER'S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 7 

 PROFITS IN BEE KEEPING. 



MODEBX METIKHIS REDUCE THE COST OF PEOIU'CTION. 



Some may take issue with my statement as to the net profit in the 

 worit; — 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 makin*g. 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 cleai' of expenses from the many 

 colonies I had then. Neither did I make $3.00 per colony clear of ex- 

 penses in producing extras ted 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 pioducing 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, duiing 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 

 t)0imd, mostly with hired help, it is not far out of the way to state that 

 bees will pay $i.00 per rolony, rlear of all expenses. But in order to 

 do BO you must learn how to reduce e.xpeuses to their lowest possible 

 minimum, and produce honey in the largest possible fiuantities that a 

 certain numlier of colonies can be made to do. 



The fact that thousands of bee-keepors are not making $2.00 per 

 colony is no disparagement to the business. The same can be said of 

 hundreds of farmers in this se. tion, 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 counj;, clear of all expenses, is a 



