BEE-KEEPING AS A PROFESSION.

Otago Witness, Issue 3330, 9 January 1918, Page 6

BEE-KEEPING AS A PROFESSION.

"I have kept a few hives of bees for two seasons, and the past summer gave me good results, therefore I am looking forward to the 'time when I can depend upon the bees for our living. Do you think it will be safe for me to enter. this business as a profession, and depend upon beekeeping for a livelihood of myself and family?" This is a question I have often been asked, and perhaps it is well to look the matter over moro carefully than has generally been done. With a man or woman adapted to the business, a suitable locality, and the adoption of sound business methods, apiculture will compare favourably with other rural pursuits. However, I wish to say there is no other branch of agriculture so apt to .mislead a beginner and inflate him with the belief 'that a fortune for him is just ahead as that of beekeeping. He is apt to figure from results that have been secured on a small scale, and argue that all he has to do in order to bring about the same results on a larger scale is to increase the business. Sooner or later he strikes an adverse season, and, lo! his bubble has burst, and ho begins to realise some of the uncertainties. Then he may go to the other extreme of discouragement, and dispose of his few remaining colonies for about the original cost of the bare hives. If ho does this, such action proves conclusively that ho is not adapted to the business' If ho were adapted to it, he would toko care of his hives and combs — do the best possible, and wait for_ better conditions. Other branches of agriculture are subject to failures. The farmer is never certain of a crop -when he puts the seed in tho ground, but on the_ whole his occupation is as certain to bring results as any other, and more so than many. So it is with beekeeping. We can form a correct esfcimaia of the relative value of the industry, as compared with others, only by taking a number of years together.. I believo it is well understood that beekeeping is not an occupation in which we can easily become immensely wealthy. In tho very nature of tilings it could not be mi. Like tho keeping of poultry, the raising of small fruits, gardening, and other minor branches of agriculture, the keeping of bees in localities adapted to the business can be depended upon to fuPuish tho owner a comfortable living; but such fortunes as are amassed by the railroad king, tho coal baron, or the Standard Oil Company can never bo hoped for by the beekeeper. Fortunately, however, the perfection of a man's happiness bears out littlo relation to the size of his fortune. Many a man with tho hum of bees over hia

head finds happiness sweeter and deeper than ever comes to these amasscrs of wealth from others' labours. *■

Apiculture is an ennobling pursuit. It brings out tho best there is in a man, and it keeps him close to Nature. But con it bo depended upon for a term of years as a means of supporting the family? In some localities it caw; in others it cannot. Where thero is only an unreliable source of honey, no man can depend upon bees alone. In case we wish to adopt beekeeping as a profession, a location must be ohoson possessing at least one unfailing source of honey, or else several sources, some one or more of which will most surely furnish a crop. Lo'cation is a great factor; but management and a thorough knowledge of our location aro tho most important of all. It will not do to be like a beekeeper I once visited, who was so ignorant of his location, and so negli?;ent of- tho wants of his colonics that ho old me that he expected the bees to do weli when tho basswood came into bloom, whereas basswood had come and gone; and tho energetic bees, having had no surplus arrangement provided in which 'to store the honey, had just filled their broodoombs all" that they could, and then loafed the time away, or else had built comb under the hive-stands. With a good knowledge regarding all of the minor resources of his field, and with a management which would leave' no stone unturned to meet the basswood bloom, and with everything in readiness at the opening of tho first blossoms, doubtless an average yield of 1001 bof comb honey, or 1501 bof extracted, could have been secured from each old colony in the spring. Many who . attempt beekeeping as a specialty are lacking in business methods. They attempt too many makeshifts by way of experiments with hives, implements, and tho like. Very few enter the ranks of apiculture without really thinking and 'believing that they can invent a better hive, or something pertaining to bee culture, that is superior to that which has been used by those who have gone . I know there is a certain fascination and enjoyment in this; but the beet is sure to come by taking 'the things which the most successful apiarists use and adopting them. Enough bees should be kept so that, when there is a good year or two, enough money may be made to tide over- a poor season that is quite liable to come. Having two or more out-apiaries tends towards a moro even yield of profit. The very fact that the bees are scattered about in out-apiaries, several miles apart, adds 'to tho certainty of a crop.—G. M. Doolittle, in Gleanings.