BEEKEEPING IN ARKANSAS 



..^— — "~ W. J.lBAERG 



Beekeeping as an industry should receive more attention in 

 Arkansas. Any locality in the state will support a few colonies 

 of bees, and such regions as the holly belt in the southern part 

 of the state and the Mississippi river bottoms in the eastern part 

 of the state will support a large number of colonies of bees and 

 make beekeeping a very profitable pursuit. 



By encouraging people to become beekeepers, we do not 

 mean "bee owners." Bees must be kept; not merely owned. 

 Not only are apiaries belonging to such owners a dead invest- 

 ment; but they are actually a serious menace, because highly 

 infectious brood diseases are allowed to proceed unchecked, and 

 the neglected apiaries serve as centers of infections in the entire 

 neighborhood. 



STATUS OP BEEKEEPING IN ARKANSAS 



According to reports of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture there were in 1918 83,458 colonies of bees in the 

 state. Iowa and Missouri offering no better opportunities have 

 about twice the number of colonies in Arkansas. In these re- 

 ports we learn also the unpleasant fact that Arkansas beekeep- 

 ers lose annually sometimes as high as 25 per cent of their colo- 

 nies on account of starvation. Another item in the reports ex- 

 plains this tremendous loss by the fact that bees are given no 

 winter protection in this state. To reduce these extensive losses 

 and to aid in the growth of one of the most profitable industries 

 of the state is the purpose of this bulletin. 



THE VALUE OF BEES ' 



According to a conservative estimate considerably more 

 than one-half of the nectar secreted by plants in the United 

 States every year is lost. Bees are the only agency that man has 

 by which he can appropriate for himself this valuable plant pro- 

 duct and have it made into one of the most delicious, nutritious, 

 and readily digestible of all foods. 



The peculiar advantages of beekeeping are seldom suffi- 

 ciently realized. It does not require an investment in land, nor 

 in expensive equipment. Any man or woman who has the apti- 

 tude can learn to make money in the production of a food mater- 

 ial that almost always can be sold at a handsome profit, and that 

 during a temporary depression of prices can be kept in a good 

 marketable condition, even from year to year if necessary. 



A crop of honey is not all that is to be gained from beekeep- 



