Excellence for Amateurs and Women. 5 



EXCELLENCE AS AN AMATEUR PURSUIT. 



Again, there is no business, and I speak from experience 

 that serves so well as an avocation. It offers additional funds 

 to the poorly paid, out-door air to the clerk and office-hand 

 healthful exercise to the person of sedentary habits, and superb 

 recreation to the student or professional man, and especially 

 to him whose life-work is of that dull, hum-drum, routine 

 order that seems to rob life of all zest. The labor required in 

 keeping bees can, with a little thought and management, be 

 so planned, if but few colonies are kept, as not to infringe up- 

 on the time demanded by the regular occupation. Indeed, I 

 have never been more heartily thanked than by such persons 

 as named above, because I had called them to consider — which 

 usually means to adopt — the pleasing duties of the apiary. 



ADAPTATION TO WOMEN. 



Apiculture may also bring succor to those whom society has 

 not been over-ready to favor — our women. Widowed mothers, 

 dependent girls, the weak and the feeble, all may find a bless- 

 ing in the easy, pleasant and profitable labors of the apiary. 

 Of course, women who lack vigor and health can care for but 

 very few colonies, and must have sufficient strength to bend 

 over and lift the small-sized frames of comb when loaded with 

 honey, and to carry empty hives. With the proper thought 

 and management, full colonies need never be lifted, nor work 

 done in the hot sunshine. Yet right here let me add, and 

 emphasize the truth, that only those who will let energetic thought 

 and skillful plan, and above all promptitude and persistence, make 

 up for physical weakness, should enlist as apiarists. Usually a 

 stronger body and improved health, the results of pure air, 

 sunshine and exercise, will make each successive day's labor 

 more easy, and will permit a corresponding growth in the size 

 of the apiary for each successive season. One of the most 

 noted apiarists, not only in America but in the world, sought 

 in bee-keeping her lost health, and found not only health but 

 reputation and influence. Some of the most successful apiarists 

 in our country are women. Of these, many were led to adopt 

 the pursuit because of waning health, grasping at this as the 

 last and successful weapon with which to vanquish the grim 

 monster. 



