146 
THE HIVE AND IlONET-BEE. 
keeping, if they did not regard it as a source of pleasant 
recreation, ratlier than of pecuniary profit; while others 
do not hesitate to say that much more money has, of late 
years, been spent upon patent .hives, than those who have 
used them have realized from their bees. 
It is an easy matter to make calculations on paper* al¬ 
most as flattering as an imaginary tour to the gold mines 
of Australia or California. Only purchase a p.atent bee¬ 
hive, and if it fulfills the promises of its sanguine inventor, 
a fortune must be re.alized in a few years; but such are 
the disappointments resulting from bees refusing to swarm, 
that'if the hive could remedy all other difficulties, it would 
still fail to answer the reasonable wishes of the experienced 
Apiarian. If every swarm of bees could be made to yield 
a jirofit of twenty dollars a ye.ar, the bee-keeper could not 
multiply his stocks, by natural swarming, so as to meet 
* The following calculation of proflta from beo-culture, taken from 
“Sydserff’s Treaties on Bees,” published in England, in 1792, is a perfect goiu of 
Its kind: 
“Suppose a swarm of bees at the first to cost 10s. 6d., and neither them nor the 
ewaviiis to bo taken, but to do w’cll, and swarm once every year" — bees must lie 
naughty, indeed, if they dnro to do otherwise! — “ what will bo tho product for four* 
teen years, and wiiat the profit, if each hive is sold at lOs. fld.? 
rears. //u'w. ProJits. 
£> 8. d. 
1 . 1 . 0 0 0 
2. 3 I 1 0 
8. 4 2 2 0 
4. 8. 4 4 0 
• • . • * . * * ♦ 
14 . 8192 4300 18 0 
“N. B.—Deduct 10s. 6d., what the first hive cost, and tho remainder will be clear 
profit; suppo.'iing the second savarins to pay for hives, labor, *tc.” The modesty 
with which this writer, w’ho seems to have had ns much faith In his boos as in the 
doctrine that “figures cannot lie,” closos bis calculation at the end of fourtccD 
years, Is truly refreshing. No boo-kceper, on such a royal road to wealth, c.ouM 
ever find it In his heart to stop under twenty-one years, by which time his stocks 
wouh! have increased to more than a million, when, prohahly^ he would bo willing 
to close his bec-buslneas, by soiling them for over two and Ihroo-qunrlor inini»M 
of doll.ars 1 Tho atli-ntion of all vemliu*s of humbug Icc-hlvcs, Is ro.spcctfully in' 
vited to this antique .'‘iiceimcii of the art of pulling. 
