36 PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 



around this can on top of your hive, and fill it with rags or 

 crumpled paper, or most anything porous, and pack it down 

 snug. Then you can put on your cover and your job is done. 

 Your bees will take down this syrup winter or summer, and 

 if you will keep your bees in buildings as we do, above 

 ground, you can feed at any time or look at your feeder at 

 any time of the year, in any weather, only do not open a bee- 

 hive unless it is above 45°. 



CHAPTER X y 

 Getting Our Honey Supply With Only Two Visits a Year, 



Are bees destined to give man his greatest and most 

 easily obtained sweet supply ? It really looks as if they are. 

 There is a honey supply coming down to us each year that 

 is greater in value than all our farm crops and cattle, and is 

 allowed to go to waste when it might be gathered up so 

 easily. 



Bees have spread themselves, or have been spread by 

 man, until now there is scarcely a place where man is, where 

 bees are not. They have, as it were, been running parallel 

 with man, sometimes getting a little too near to him, but 

 always as if it were saying to many, "Take me and use me," 

 but man has not been intelligent enough to do so. He now 

 seems to be waking up to the great possibilities of the honey 

 bee, so let's canvass the situation a. little to see where we 

 are at. 



As we have said, man is on the job, the bees are with 

 man and this enormous honey supply comes down to us each 

 year unsolicited, and unlike our mineral wealth, which once 

 used is gone forever, the honey supply is renewed for us each 

 year. Then all that seems to be needed is for man to put 

 this great combination together and use it for his benefit. 

 Heretofore, he had not had proper understanding of the 

 bees, nor the proper appliances to work with, but now, I 

 feel sure that both the knowledge of the bees and the ap- 

 pliances to handle them have been so improved, that there 

 should be a great advance on the double quick, to gather 

 up this great store of the purest of all sweets and most 

 valuable commercial product for man's benefit. So at 

 this point it seems very fitting that we have emblazoned on 

 the front cover of our national magazine this advice, "KEEP 

 MORE BEES." In the past the farmers and others have 

 had no knowledge of the bees other than to have them 

 increase by natural swarming and in the little hives that 



