BEE KEEPING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
89 
stated a that Massachusetts can support approximately 40,000 colonies 
of bees. This number, producing an average of 35 pounds of honey 
to the colony, Avould supply 1,400,000 pounds, or 700 tons, of honey a 
year, contrasted with 73 tons. This crop would not be especially 
burdensome, and, divided among the people, each would have less 
than a half pound a year. Furthermore, there is no immediate 
danger of the production of any such amount. 
Table IV. — Honey and wax production reported in Massachusetts. 
Date. 
Honey. 
Wax. 
Sources of data. 
1839 
Pounds. 
Pounds. 
1,196 
a 59, 508 
2, 324. 5 
3,289 
2,454 
1, 195 
2,463 
1,690 
6, 250 
1,289 
U. S. Census Rept. for 1840. 
U. S. Census Rept. for 1850. 
3d Ann. Rept. Sec. Mass. Bd. Agric. for 1856. 
U. S. Census Rept, for 1860. 
13th Ann. Rept. Sec. Mass. Bd. Agric. for 1866. 
U. S. Census Rept. for 1870. 
U. S. Census Rept. for 1880. 
U. S. Census Rept. for 1890. 
U. S. Census Rept. for 1900. 
1849 
1855 
73. 677 
59,125 
80, 356 
25, 299 
49, 397 
90, 929 
109,050 
6145,257 
1859 
1865 . . 
1869 
1879 
1889 
1899 
1906 
The author's census. 
a Includes both honey and wax product. 
6 Extracted, 36,597 pounds ; comb, 108,660 pounds. 
WAX CROP. 
It is customary for bee keepers to save their old combs from year 
to year before rendering them, which produces an annual variation 
in the product. Futhermore, outbreaks of bee diseases cause much 
more comb to be rendered. Severe winters, which frequently result 
in a loss of bees, usually produce a relative increase in the wax 
output the following year. It is therefore difficult to calculate a 
representative annual product of wax. The commercial importance 
of the wax crop, and the relative returns from it as compared with 
honey, are gradually becoming more and more realized; therefore, 
as the honey product increases it is to be expected that the wax out- 
put will proportionally increase. Table IV presents all the recorded 
information on wax production in Massachusetts. 
SOURCES OF HONEY. 
Too little attention is given the nectar-yielding flora, even among 
those who seek a livelihood in the production of honey. Although 
it is sometimes difficult to learn the sources from which bees get 
°U. S. I). A., Bur. Kut. Bui. 75, Pt. TTT, p. 23. Allowing an average of 100 
to 125 acres to support a colony of bees, based on experience of large bee 
keepers wbo maintain a series of outyards, and eliminating 500 square miles as 
probably unavailable for bee pasturage, tbere remain 7,814 square miles, or 
5,000,0(50 acres, for forage in Massachusetts, which would support approximately 
40,000 to 50,000 colonies of bees. 
78013°— Bull. 75—11 7 
