CONSIDERA TIONS. 155 



scale, plants which will bloom in the times when 

 natural pasturage fails, keep every hive very strong in 

 bees, and he may receive from ten to twenty pounds 

 of honey per day from each hive, for several months 

 in succession. 



21. In spite of my warning there will be some 

 who will rush into bee-keeping, expecting to get 

 rich in a year or two, without much hard work. It 

 was so with fruit-growing. People became wild, and 

 expected to make a fortune in a short time from an 

 acre or two of strawberries. Of course they were 

 disappointed. So every person, who expects to get 

 rich quickly by keeping a few bees, will fail. Money 

 can be made only by thorough acquaintance with 

 the business, and by careful, persistent work from 

 year to year. But, in spite of what I say, some will 

 get bitten by beginning bee-keeping without due 

 preparation, and with false expectations. When 

 you do get bitten, please to remember that " I told 

 you so." 



Now my record of the first year's work among my 

 bees is done. To write this account has been a 

 happy task, for in so doing I have lived over again 

 those first absorbing months, when every operation 

 was new, and every success was a joyful surprise and 

 a stimulus to greater effort. Looking at the 

 pleasure the bees have brought me ; looking at the 

 growth of character which has come from the lesson 



