Page:How to Keep Bees.djvu/25

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WHY KEEP BEES
5

would, from the first, make bee-keeping his chief work should receive his training in a large apiary. As a vocation it demands the entire time and energy of a shrewd and able person to insure success; of such, America already has a great number, with yearly incomes varying from $1,000 to $10,000. However, the desire to make the bees keep themselves and add more or less to the family income is a practical and sensible reason for keeping bees. Fifteen or twenty colonies may be managed with comparatively little time and attention and the work may be done largely by women or the younger members of the household. If proper care be given to such an apiary, it will prove of material benefit to the family purse; for, if the season be favourable, the product of one colony should net the owner from four to ten dollars. We know of boys who have thus earned their college expenses; and many women have bought immunity from the drudgery of the kitchen with money paid them for their crops of honey. It should be borne in mind that honey-money is not obtained without thought, energy, and some hard work. The bees would have been less beneficent to mankind had they bestowed honey without demanding a return in care and labour.

Many have kept bees as a recreation, and there is none better. It gives delightful and absorbing occupation in the open air and is not merely a rest from mental and sedentary labours, but is a stimulus to health and strength as well. In the various bee journals are recorded testimonials from thousands