116 
THE APIARY. 
1864, their apiary consisted of one Italian, and fifty-eight stocks 
of black bees. The one Italian stock was increased to fifteen, 
and the fifty-eight stocks of black bees to one hundred and 
eighty-one, principally by artificial swarming, and averaged 42 & 
pounds box honey per stock ; while, for the past season, from 
two hundred and four old stocks they received, on an average, 
a trifle over seventy-five pounds surplus honey per stock. 
“A. Kearns, of Grundy County, started in this business, 
with a single swarm in an “old gum” owned by a neighbor, of 
whom he received half the proceeds for keeping them. One 
hive, one year old, filled three boxes that weighed as follows: 
one ’34%, one 35kf, and one 36K pounds, boxes and honey 
together, and the fourth partly full. This bee business is of 
growing importance. As soon as these discoveries are thoroughly 
known, bee raising will become as general as any other branch 
of production. When men learn that it is just about as cheap 
to raise honey as not to raise it, and far cheaper than to buy it, 
they wiU no longer avoid the business .”— Prairie Farmer. 
Let a person estimate the profits of bee-keeping, by commenc- 
ing with a few stocks, and on an average, doubling every year, 
or°putting the yearly average of surplus honey per stock very 
low, compute the interest accruing from capital invested in bees, 
and’ consider how easy it is to accumulate such capital, with the 
fact that constant attention is never required, and that hives will 
last almost a lifetime, he will not be surprised to find the most 
intelligent men in this country and Europe, turning their atten- 
tion to apiarian pursuits. 
