It may be safely said that any place where farming, gardening, or fruit raising can be successfully followed is adapted to the profitable keeping of bees—in a limited way at least, if not extensively. Many of these localities will support extensive apiaries. In addition to this there are, within the borders of the United States, thousands of good locations for the apiarist—forest, prairie, swamp, and mountain regions—where agriculture has as yet not gained a foothold, either because of remoteness from markets or the uninviting character of soil or climate. This pursuit may also be followed in or near towns and, to a limited extent, in large cities. It even happens in some instances that bees in cities or towns find more abundant pasturage than in country locations which are considered fair.
The city of Washington is an example of this, bees located here doing better during the spring and summer months than those in the surrounding country, owing to the bee pasturage found in the numerous gardens and parks and the nectar-yielding shade trees along the streets. This is due mainly to the fact that the linden, or basswood, which is rarely seen in the country about Washington, has been planted extensively in the parks and for miles on both sides of many of the streets and avenues of the city.[A] Another source in the city not found extensively in the country adjacent is melilot, Bokhara or sweet clover (Melilotus alba), which has crept into vacant lots and neglected corners, and diffuses its agreeable perfume to the delight of all city dwellers, whether human or insect. The writer has practiced with profit the transportation of nearly a hundred colonies from a country apiary 10 miles distant to Washington for the linden and sweet clover yield. He has also seen a prosperous apiary kept on the roof of a business house in the heart of New York City, and on several occasions has visited another apiary of 30 to 40 colonies, which a skillful apiarist had located on the roof of his store in the business portion of Cincinnati, Ohio, and from which 30 to 40 pounds of honey per colony were usually obtained each year.
[A] Several species of lindens are included in these plantings, but none yields more than our common American linden, or basswood (Tilia americana).
Another apiary personally inspected was located directly on the sand banks forming the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. These bees were, of course, unable to forage westward from the apiary, hence had but half "a field." The soil of the area over which the bees ranged was a light sand, unproductive for most crops, and the region was little developed agriculturally, most of the honey coming from forest trees and from shrubs and wild plants growing in old burnings and windfalls, yet 25 to 30 pounds of excellent honey per colony was the usual surplus obtained. At one time the writer had an apiary in the city of Detroit, Mich., where the wide river on one side cut off nearly half of the pasturage, yet the bees did will. And again for several years he had an apiary containing from 100 to 200 colonies of bees on a very sterile coast of the Island of Cyprus, and another nearly as large located but a few rods from the seashore on a rocky point of Syria. Both of these apiaries were devoted in the main to queen rearing, yet the yield of honey was not an unimportant item, especially in the Syrian apiary, while in the Cyprus apiary some honey was frequently taken, and it was rarely necessary to feed the bees for stores. In the latter case about one-fourth of the range was out off by the sea, the bees being located at the head of an open bay and a short distance from the shore, while the location of the Syrian apiary prevented the bees from securing half of the usual range, hence their greater prosperity was due to the nature and quantity of the pasturage of their limited range.
It is evident, therefore, that no one similarly located need be deterred from keeping bees, provided the nectar-yielding trees and plants of the half range are of the right sort and abundant. Moreover, regions so rough and sterile or so swampy as to give no encouragement to the agriculturist, or even to the stock raiser, will often yield a good income to the bee keeper, insignificant and apparently worthless herbs and shrubs furnishing forage for the bees. The ability of the bees to range over areas inaccessible to other farm stock and to draw their sustenance from dense forests when the timber is of the right kind, and the freedom which, because of their nature, must be accorded them to pasture on whatever natural sources are within their range of 3 or 4 miles, must be taken into account in estimating the possibilities of a locality. It will be found that very few localities exist in our country where at least a few colonies of bees may not be kept. Whether a large number might be profitably kept in a given locality can be decided only by a careful examination as to the honey-producing flora within range of the apiary (see pp. [12] and [26]-[29]).
The danger of overstocking a given locality is very frequently exaggerated. Each range, it is self-evident, has a limit. The writer is, however, fully convinced, after long experience in numerous localities and under the most varied circumstances, that three or four times as many colonies as are commonly considered sufficient to stock a given range may usually be kept with a relative degree of profit. But to secure such results sufficient care and close observation have too frequently not been given in the selection of bees adapted to the locality and conditions. A more frequent failure has been lack of proper attention to the individual colonies, particularly as to the age and character of the queens in each. The space given for brood rearing is often too small, and frequently no care is given to secure the proper amount of brood in time to insure a population ready for each harvest. Attention to these points would enable great numbers of bee keepers who now regard 50 to 100 colonies as fully stocking their range to reach several hundreds in a single apiary, with slight or no diminution in the average yield per colony.
[THE RETURNS TO BE EXPECTED FROM AN APIARY.]
Although apiculture is extremely fascinating to most people who have a taste for the study of nature, requiring, as it does, out-of-door life, with enough exercise to be of benefit to one whose main occupation is sedentary, the income to be derived from it when rightly followed is a consideration which generally has some weight and is often the chief factor in leading one to undertake the care of bees. Certainly, where large apiaries are planned, the prime object is the material profit, for they require much hard labor and great watchfulness, and the performance of the work at stated times is imperative, so that in this case there is less opportunity than where but a few colonies are kept to make a leisurely study of the natural history and habits of these interesting insects, because—unless the keeper is willing to forego a considerable portion of his profits—his time must necessarily be almost wholly taken up in attending to the most apparent wants of his charges.