22 THE BLESSED BEES. 



a large portion of the swarms would perish in the 

 winter ; sometimes the sorry bee-keeper would find 

 himself in the spring the owner only of a long array 

 of empty hives. Our bees had done so well for the 

 season it seemed worth while to winter them if pos- 

 sible, so to Prof. Cook I turned for knowledge. 



As I ran down the index page my eye chanced to 

 strike the words Profits of Bee-keeping. I turned to 

 the body of the book to see what the profits were. 

 I was much surprised as I read, and thought at first 

 there must be some mistake. After reading the 

 passage over three or four times it seemed certain 

 that it said what the author had intended to say, 

 but the statement seemed quite incredible. He 

 said : A n experienced apiarist may invest in bees any 

 spring in Michigan, with the absolute certainty of 

 more than doubling his investment the first season, 

 while a net gain of four hundred per cent, causes no 

 surprise to the bee-keepers of our state. During the 

 past season an investment in bees has returned to me 

 five hundred per cent., and though this has been a 

 good season for honey, yet I have done better than this 

 several times. No less than three farmers of our 

 state who possess good improved farms, and also keep 

 about one hundred colonies of bees each, have told me 

 within a few weeks that their income from their bees 

 far exceeded that from their farms. 



These statements at first seemed so wild as to be 



