Mistakes in Bee-keeping 21 



Many fall into the error of judging entirely by results, regardless 

 of causes. As that excellent bee-keeper, R. L. Taylor, of Michigan, once 

 said: "The greatest actual results do not prove the method of man- 

 agement by which they were produced to be the best. Time and labor 

 and thought and care and material and capital are all money, so the 

 greatest results numerically may be obtained at a loss, while the least 

 apparent results may yield a profit." 



In much this same manner do many bee-keepers make the mistake 

 of computing their income at so many pounds per colony, and at so much 

 per pound. The greatest yield per colony might not be so profitable as 

 a less yield per colony from more colonies, or even a lessened yield from 

 the same number of colonies. If a great yield per colony is the result 

 of a great deal of \\ork, it may be that the work was done at a loss. 

 Bee-keeping should be viewed in a broader light. It may sometimes be 

 profitable to put a great deal of work on each colony ; but each bee- 

 keeper should ask himself how, all things considered, can I make the 

 most profit ? That is the question, and all other propositions not relating 

 directly thereto are mistakes. 



And this leads to the mention of another mistake, the keeping of 

 too few bees. Instead of keeping only a few colonies, and striving to 

 secure the largest yield per colony, it is usually more profitable to keep 

 more bees — enough to gather all the honey in a given area, and then 

 when that area is overstocked it is probably a mistake not to start out- 

 apiaries. There is much to be gained in having as few kinds of things 

 to do as possible, and as much of them as can be managed. The pro- 

 portional cost of doing business is greatly lessened by increasing the 

 volume. 



Another mistake is that of choosing hives, implements, and methods 

 that are complicated and require much time for their manipulation. A 

 most common error in this direction is that of trying to adapt hives to 

 bees, to such an extent as almost entirely to ignore the adaptability of 

 the hive to the bee-keeper. I remember once hearing a bee-keeper argu- 

 ing for a hive that it was "so handy for the bees." "Why," said he, 

 "if you were building a house, would you have it so arranged that 

 your wife would be compelled to go up and down stairs between the 

 kitchen and the pantry?" It must be remembered that we build hives 

 for our bees, and houses for our wives, with altogether different objects 

 in view. We don't keep bees, nor arrange their hives, so much with 

 a view to saving them labor as that z^'c may get the most honey with 

 the least labor to ourselves. Drone-traps, queen-traps, self-hivers, queen- 

 excluders, separators, and many other contrivances, are j^robabl}- not 

 considered "handv" by the bees, but their use is an advantage to us. 



