My father allowed me the use of bees, hives, combs, etc., for queen rearing. The queens I sold for seventy-five cents and one dollar each, according to the grade. To my father I furnished one hundred queens at the reduced price of fifty cents each as rent for the bees, hives, etc. I had about ninety nuclei of two frames each. During the swarming season I used a good many natural cells from the better colonies. Later I used artificial, dipped cells which I made myself. In the latter case I took larvæ from the very best queens in the apiary and placed the cells in queenless colonies to be developed, or sometimes in colonies which were superseding their queens. When the cells were nearly ready to hatch they were placed in the nuclei where the young queens remained until they commenced laying, when they were ready for sale.
Altogether I made a little over one hundred dollars that season. I was then eighteen years old and determined to go to college. Two years later I began my studies at the University of California, working for my board in a private family and drawing from the one hundred dollars for incidentals. Clothing I had received at home and had made myself for the most part.
The San Francisco earthquake occurred on the eighteenth of April, in the spring of my freshman year, and college was closed immediately, so that I was able to enter again into the queen rearing business. That season I sent out advertising cards to the members of the California Bee-Keepers' Association and sold nearly all my queens to them. The financial result was nearly the same as for the former season.
So in all I made about two hundred dollars, which paid for the incidentals during three years of my college career which is as far as I have gone. By "incidentals" I mean books, paper, and such necessities, also subscriptions to the college daily paper, class and association dues, tickets to college jinks, theatricals, games, etc. I also spent a good deal for tickets to concerts, plays, etc., as that was my first opportunity to hear the great musicians and actors and I considered that a part of my education.
Flora McIntyre
PROFITS OF BEE-KEEPING
I have been asked to tell something of my early experiences as a bee-keeper, for boys and girls who may become interested in this very fascinating, and, I may say at the same time, profitable, pursuit.
I think it may be said of bee-keeping as sailors say of seafaring—once a bee-keeper always a bee-keeper.
I should like to tell you in a few words what can be expected from a dozen and a half hives of bees with an average of one and one half days a week spent in the apiary. I believe really, though, that when I began keeping bees it was not because I expected to make much money. The whole story of the bee life, as read from different books which I secured after becoming interested, was so wonderful and fascinating that I could hardly wait until spring so that I might study the two hives acquired through the winter. That first spring and summer there were only those old box hives, which could not be opened for inside study, and all observations had to be confined to watching the bees from the outside. The next summer some modern hives that could be taken apart and every nook and corner laid open to observation were bought. In the fall I was very fortunate in securing eighteen colonies of bees at an auction sale, paying therefor only fifty cents a colony, much to my satisfaction and my neighbours' amusement. Most of the hives were frame, but of an undesirable sort of frame. The next summer these colonies were transferred to up-to-date hives. That summer, and for the next succeeding six summers, these colonies did not fail to yield on an average about seventy dollars' worth of honey and wax. Counting out winter losses the number of colonies per year would average twelve, the number of pounds of honey about three hundred and seventy-five, worth twenty cents a pound. The bees received only a small part of my time each day.
Later, when a student at the Ohio State University, as manager of the apiary there, about the same results were obtained, so that an average of about five dollars a hive is a conservative estimate. If one begins in a small way, in a few years he should be able to manage one hundred colonies. But it should be remembered that the yield per hive may decrease somewhat as the number of colonies increases, because of the danger of launching in the business on a large scale. The best insurance against loss is a thorough study and understanding of all the details by the practice of bee-keeping on a small scale for a term of years first.