C. P. McKinnon.
Bangor, Iowa, Nov. 30, 1893.
A Beginner 65 Years Old.
I am 65 years old, though a young bee-keeper, and have never happened to be where many bees were kept. I have had a great deal of bad luck the last two or three years. I had my safe blown open, and robbed of nearly $2,000 of the town’s money, which used me up financially. But I believe my little busy bees are going to help me out soon.
I traded my watch, last winter, for 3 colonies of bees, and I think they have done well this season. After cleaning the sections and sorting the partly-filled ones, I had 330 sections of honey, 7 new colonies of bees, making me 10 to put into winter quarters on Nov. 25th, with plenty of honey to winter, with the exception of one small colony that I fed for a week; it had not very many bees, but it may come out all right in the spring.
I think the above is doing pretty well for a greenhorn; and I also think I should have made a grand failure of bee-keeping if I had not subscribed for the American Bee Journal. I traded for the bees last winter—about a year ago—and subscribed for the Bee Journal, and became a little posted by spring. It paid me ten times the amount of the subscription price. I wish we had another Mrs. Jennie Atchley here in the northwest.
Daniel Smethurst.
Seneca, Wis., Dec. 4, 1893.