Investment Necessary
The investment which the general beekeeper makes in his business is nine-tenths brains and study and one-tenth money invested in bees and equipment. If he invests money only, his failure is a foregone conclusion.
The price of hives and other equipment has greatly increased during the war, and there is not much likelihood that it will decrease materially during the next few years. However, by making inquiry the beekeeper may frequently find opportunity to buy equipment from persons who have failed to make a success because of unwillingness to study the problems of the apiarist or of inability to devote to the work the time necessary. Such failures are sufficiently clear proof that the bee business requires devotion. The country is full of discarded hives which have been bought by persons who have conceived the idea that it was only necessary to buy a colony of bees and that the bees would “work for nothing and board themselves.”
If new hives completely equipped for producing extracted honey are bought at present prices they will probably cost from $4 to $5 each. The bees to start a colony will cost perhaps $5 if purchased from dealers in bees, but may obtained for much less by arranging with some apiarist to fill the hives one supplies with swarms as they come off. Frequently such arrangements may be made with some beekeeper who, not caring for more colonies and to avoid buying hives, will gladly sell swarms as they issue, at a nominal cost.
In proportion to the return, there is no other branch of agriculture requiring so small a financial investment as beekeeping. Before the inflation of prices due to the war two colonies of bees on an average paid the good beekeeper as well as an acre of corn, and the investment was, of course, much less. It is estimated that an apiary of 300 colonies will yield a net income equal to that of a good 160-acre farm and be quite as reliable from year to year. However, the statement made should be kept in mind—the investment which the beekeeper makes is chiefly brains. This is a commodity which can not be purchased from the hive dealer or secured with any number of swarms. In fact, the more bees and equipment you have without the use of brains and training, the worse off you are.