Alice was, as Bob had predicted, “tickled to death” at the report and the plan that the boys brought back.
“Couldn’t possibly be anything better!” she exclaimed. “What a lucky thing we came South! With a permanent apiary down here, we can ship bees North every spring, enough to stock a hundred fresh hives, until we have—oh, the biggest bee-outfit in North America. Old Dick is going to make us all rich!”
“Maybe,” returned Carl, “but he’s going to make us poor first. Have you considered how much it’s going to cost to outfit this swamp yard?”
“The wax and honey we get from the old gums will pay for it,” said Alice optimistically.
That was what they all hoped, but they began to doubt when they made out a detailed list of what the enterprise was going to need. They would have to take a complete outfit of bee-keeper’s supplies, camp kit, and housekeeping outfit. The latter, indeed, could be borrowed from the plantation, but the apiary apparatus made a formidable list, and supplies were advancing in price. They had been through much this same experience in their first venture in the North; but there they had purchased a working outfit, while this apiary would have to be rebuilt from the ground up. Nothing but the bees themselves could be used.
Lumber to make the new hives, however, was an easy and cheap matter in that lumbering country. From a mill a few miles away Bob purchased dry cypress boards, cut and dressed to the proper width for the different parts of the hives, so that there was little to do but saw them into lengths and nail them together.
But the brood-frames, ten of them to each hive, carpenter’s tools, smokers, a small honey-extractor, wire-gauze, comb foundation, and the innumerable small articles for bee work had to be ordered from Mobile; and they spent anxious hours over the dealers’ catalogues, trying to select what they needed without spending more than they could afford. It was going to take more money than they had brought with them, that was certain, for they had never contemplated equipping a brand-new apiary in the South. They had to send to their Canadian bank for more money, and while they were waiting for it to arrive they borrowed two hundred dollars from Uncle Louis.
In the midst of this whirl of preparation Joe arrived unexpectedly.
“There really wasn’t much for me to do at the camp,” he explained. “Burnam was just keeping me out of kindness, and I cut it short. I was getting anxious to see those bees again. Are you going back to look them over?”
“We’ve done been, as you say down here,” replied Bob. “We’ve figured it all out. We’ve got things started. Look here!” and he led his cousin to see the pile of bright new lumber for hive-making.