Weak colonies are a poor investment because for the same amount 
of time and care — 
1. They store no surplus honey; 
2. They are more liable to disease; 
3. They may be robbed out by a strong hive and thus des- 
troyed. 
Therefore a good slogan for a bee-keeper is not more hives but more 
bees in each hive. 
In England bee-keepers are licensed. This law was made because 
of the dreadful losses they have suffered through a disease called the 
Isle of Wight Disease which has been known only in the last ten 
years or so. A bee-keeper, who knows his business, knows the import- 
ance of treating and eradicating disease. The old type of bee-keeper 
knew nothing of the conditions in his hive; he opened it once a year 
to take out honey; if his bees died he neither knew nor sought to know 
the reason; they were dead and that was all. 
In this country we have a National Bee-keepers' Association, a 
State Association and a County Association. Each State appropriates 
money for State inspectors. Where there is a large appropriation, 
there are more inspectors and the work is more thorough than where 
the appropriation is too small. This all sounds as if it was not more bee- 
keepers but better bee-keepers that are wanted. Yet, the amateur 
bee-keeper is just as important to the bee-keeper as the amateur gar- 
dener is to the nurseryman and florist. For the amateur has the time, 
the interest, and the money to spend on his bees, and can add more 
in certain hnes to the bee-keeping profession than the commercial bee- 
keeper can. Therefore, if the preceding articles have proved of any 
interest to their readers, even if not enough to induce them to keep 
bees of their own perhaps enough to join a local association which 
will enable them to attend meetings at apiaries where hives are opened 
and lectures given, and more important still where they can vote for 
better laws, their purpose has been served. 
Gardens of Jamaica 
E. S. Beal, North Shore Garden Club. 
If one should be more exact as to the title to this sketch, one should 
say "Jamaica, the Garden of the World." 
In the Trade vocabulary it is called the "Island of Samples," for 
everything can be produced there, but of course the quantities are 
limited. 
It is so in the flower world, too. Everything one has ever seen, 
coveted and admired in our greenhouses here spreads and rambles at 
large in un trammeled profusion. The Island offers the greatest variety 
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