APPLE BLOSSOMS. 9 1 



best to have the bees in the hive in the daytime. 

 If the feeders were supplied with honey the bees 

 would remain in. If no honey was in the feeders 

 they would fly out and collect what could be found, 

 even if it was very little. By feeding at dusk they 

 could empty the feeders by morning, and so be 

 ready to go to the fields and woods. So the feed- 

 ing was kept up. In ten days every box was nearly 

 full. Then for two days only a small amount was 

 fed, so as to give the bees a chance to fill and seal 

 every cell. At the end of twelve days I took from 

 each hive the twenty-four boxes nicely filled with 

 capped honey, as beautiful as was ever made from 

 apple blossoms. It was most attractive to the eye, 

 and of good flavor. 



Thus, before a pound of the white clover and 

 linn harvest had been taken I had received from 

 maples and apple blossoms 2,100 pounds of comb- 

 honey in the best shape for market. Comb-honey 

 was then worth twenty-five cents a pound, or $525 

 for the lot. Already the money invested in bees 

 was more than returned to me. Already my suc- 

 cess gave a surety for the success of plans for the 

 future. I saw my many different apiaries in favor- 

 able locations for miles around ; the whole country 

 yielding nectar to my millions of eager workers ; 

 the luscious harvest filling my storehouses with 

 sweets more delicate than the famed honey of 



