MANUAL OP THE APIARY. 17 



summer found myself as well able to endure the heat of the 

 sun as my husband, who has been accustomed to it all his life. 

 Previously, to attend an open-air picnic was to return with a 

 head-ache. * * * My own experience in the apiary has 

 been a source of interest and enjoyment far exceeding my 

 anticipations." Although Mrs. Baker commenced with but 

 two colonies of bees, her net profits the first season were over 

 $100 ; the second year but a few cents less than $300 ; and 

 the third year about $250. " The proof of the pudding is 

 in the eating ;" so, too, such words as given above, show that 

 apiculture offers special inducements to our sisters to become 

 either amateur or professional apiarists. 



'improves the mind and the observation. 



Successful apiculture demands close and accurate obsenra- 

 tion, and hard, continuous thought and study, and this, too, 

 in the wondrous realm of nature. In all this, the apiarist 

 receives manifold and substantial advantages. In the culti- 

 vation of the habit of observation, a person becomes constantly 

 more able, useful and susceptible to pleasure, results which 

 also follow as surely on the habit of thought and study. It 

 is hardly conceivable that the wide-awake apiarist, who is so 

 frequently busy with his wonder-working comrades of the 

 hive, can ever be lonely, or feel time twanging heavily on his 

 hands. The mind is occupied, and there is no chance for 

 ennui. The whole tendency, too, of such thought and study, 

 where nature is the subject, is to refine the taste, elevate the 

 desires, and ennoble manhood. Once get our youth, with 

 their susceptible natures, engaged in such wholesome study, 

 and we shall have less reason to fear the vicious tendencies of 

 the street, or the luring vices and damning influences of the 

 saloon. Thus apiculture spreads an intellectual feast, that 

 even the old philosophers would have coveted ; furnishes the 

 rarest food for the observing faculties, and, best of all, by 

 keeping its votaries face to face with the matchless creations 

 of the All Father, must draw them toward Him "who went 

 about doing good," and in " whom there was no guile." 



YIELDS delicious FOOD. 



A last inducement to apiculture, certainly not unworthy of 

 mention, is the offerings it brings to our tables. Health, yea, 



