2 ALEXANDER'S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 



without these elements to success there Is only one alternative, and that 

 Is and always has been simply failure. 



Then there is another thing to take into consideration. It is pleasant 

 to have a paying business that requires your time only about half of the 

 year, and that the pleasant part, when you can be outdoors and enjoy 

 all the pleasures of nature's spring and summer. With me it is a real 

 pleasure to breathe free air unsoiled by either bell or whistle calling me 

 to labor. 



I will now take it for granted that you have spent one or two sea- 

 sons in learning all that you could during that time from some competent 

 person, and you still want to follow bee-keeping. I can not advise you to 

 go slow, as some do. That "go slow" is a blight on any man. First be 

 sure that you are right, then go ahead with willing hands and a good 

 stock of perseverance ever ready to overcome the unexpected troubles as 

 you meet them. Make up your mind from the first to take good bee 

 literature; have good bees; use good tools and hives, and then produce 

 good honey. Take pride in your business. If you have taken up queen- 

 rearing, forming nuclei for sale, or increasing your colonies for sale, or 

 producing comb or extracted honey, don't forget to look well to quality. 

 Then advertise and let the public know what you have, and you will in 

 a short time not only surprise your friends but yourself with your suc- 

 cess. You now have a clear track and a light grade compared with what 

 some of us older men had fifty years ago. We then had a hard time of 

 it — no bee journals, no Italian bees, no comb foundation, no honey-ex- 

 tractors, no bee-smokers, and no market for the little honey we secured. 

 _ How different now, with our large markets established, where our 

 honey is annually sought for, either in small lots or by the carload, and 

 with our new inventions and improved methods enabling us to produce 

 five times the amount per colony we did then! To me bee-keeping now 

 seems like quite a good business. Still, I never advise one to take it up, 

 not even my own sons, for I have always taught that, when it comes to 

 choosing a life business, each one should choose for himself. While it 

 is true that man to a great extent makes his circumstances, still it is also 

 true that circumstances to a great extent make the man. 



I am well acquainted with a man who was born on a farm, and 

 worked hard on it for several years after" he was married. He was tem- 

 perate and of excellent habits, working early and late; but still his farm 

 lite was a perfect failure. After tolling in close circumstances for several 

 years his wife's friends got him a situation in New York city. Then the 

 scale turned. He struck a place that God had fitted him for, and for the 

 past thirteen years he has had a net income of over twenty thousand 

 dollars a year. I speak of this case to show that many of us are trying 

 to make a success of some business to which we are not at all adapted; 

 also to show the Importance of trying hard while young to start right. 



You should look upon your business as your bank; and whenever 

 you can add a dollar to it, do so, and it will return In due time many 

 fold. Take pride In having a good apiary, and remember there Is far 



