BEE MANUAL. 19 



a few months ago, state that the total output of California 

 honey, comb and extracted, for 1884, aggregated nearly the 

 enormous total of 9,000,000 lbs. It has no parallel in any part 

 of the world. These appear to be enormous results, and yet 

 the apiarists of America still speak and act as men convinced 

 tbat their industry is scarcely out of its infancy as yet, and who 

 see no prospect of a sudden or early check to the progressive 

 increase either of production or consumption. 



The use of manufactured sugar has now for many generations 

 almost entirely supplanted that of honey, which could not be, 

 under the old system, produced in sufficient quantities or at a 

 sufficiently low cost to compete with the new sweet. But sugar, 

 although so nearly the same in chemical constitution, is not 

 honey, and never can take the place of that delicious product 

 as an agreeable and wholesome addition to the food of man. 

 Modern apiculture, which renders possible an enormously in- 

 creased production of honey at a greatly reduced cost, cannot 

 fail to lead to its general use again, not of course to the ex- 

 clusion of sugar, but upon a scale which would have been quite 

 impossible in former times. 



PROFITS OF BEE-KEEPING. 



This is a question with reference to which it is necessary to 

 guard against false or exaggerated views. It must be recollected 

 that all industries require the combination in certain propor- 

 tions of three elements — capital, labour, and skill. Some 

 afford a ready and safe investment for the first ; others require 

 an immense quantity of the second ; and others again are 

 chiefly dependent upon the exercise of the third. The honey 

 industry especially may be reckoned of the latter sort. An 

 apiary cannot, it is true, be established without a certain 

 expenditure of capital, nor worked without some labour ; but 

 both these factors are small as compared with the value of the 

 personal care and attention of the skilled apiarist, upon which 

 the question of profit or loss mainly depends, and the profits 

 of a successful apiary are rarely indeed more than sufficient to 

 fairly remunerate the time and skill so applied. Bee-keeping 

 is therefore not to be looked upon as a profitable investment for 

 large capital, or as a large employer of labour, but as a fair 

 field, and certainly a fairly remunerative one, for the industry, 



