Bee-keeping as a Business 



In reply to the query, "What will best mix with bee-keeping?" I 

 have always replied, "Some more bees." When the conditions are 

 favorable I am decidedly in favor of bee-keeping as a specialty — of 

 dropping all other hampering pursuits, and turning the whole capital, 

 time, and energies into bee-keeping. If bee-keeping can not be made 

 profitable as a specialty, then it is unprofitable as a subsidiary pursuit. 

 If bee-keeping must be propped up with some other pursuit, then we 

 had better throw away bee-keeping and keep the prop. 



General farming is very poorly adapted for combining with bee- 

 keeping, yet the attempt is probably made oftener than with an\' other 

 pursuit. There are critical times in bee-keeping that will brook no delay ; 

 when three or four days' or a week's neglect may mean the loss of a 

 crop ; and these times come right in the height of the season, when the 

 farmer is the busiest. L,eaving the team and reaper standing idle in 

 the back field while the farmer goes to the house to hive bees is neither 

 pleasant nor profitable. Drawing in a field of hay while the bees lie 

 idle because the honey has not been extracted to give them store room 

 is another illustration of the conditions with which the farmer bee-keeper 

 has to contend. The serious part of it is that the honey thus lost may 

 be worth nearly or quite as much as the hay that is saved. Some special 

 lines of rural pursuits, like winter dairying or the raising of grapes or 

 winter apples, unite with bee-keeping to mitch better advantage than 

 general farming ; but when bee-keeping is capable of absorbing all of the 

 capital, time, and energy that a man can put into it, why divide these 

 resources with some other pursuit? It has been said that bee-keeping 

 is a precarious pursuit ; that it can not be depended upon alone to furnish 

 a livelihood, and for this reason it should be joined with some business 

 of a more stable character. It is true that there are many localities 

 where there is often a season in which little or no honey is secured, and, 

 in the Northern States, winter losses are sometimes very heavy, hence 

 it would be risky to depend entirely for a living upon keeping bees, in a 

 limited way, in such localities ; but if the average profit from bee-keeping, 

 one year with another, is not the equal of other rural pursuits, why keep 

 bees ? The truth of the matter is, it is greater ; and if bee-keepers would 

 only drop everything else and adopt methods that would enable them to 

 branch out and keep hundreds of colonies where they now have dozens. 



