. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. Jan. 3, 1907 I ^»^5£.-<(^^^|AniericanBecJonrnalJ?i. How Many Colonies to Be- come Well-to-Do? BY C. P. DAD A NT. On page 880, (1906), Mr. Doolittle asks, "How many colonies should we keep to become well-to-do?" and re- quests an answer from Dr. Miller, Hutchinson, myself, or others. On page 964, (1906), H. H. Moe reminds us of this question, and gives his views. It is quite a long time since I "sparred" with Mr. Doolittle, I am not one of the "sparring" kind, unless I can see some gross error to redress, and the presen
. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. Jan. 3, 1907 I ^»^5£.-<(^^^|AniericanBecJonrnalJ?i. How Many Colonies to Be- come Well-to-Do? BY C. P. DAD A NT. On page 880, (1906), Mr. Doolittle asks, "How many colonies should we keep to become well-to-do?" and re- quests an answer from Dr. Miller, Hutchinson, myself, or others. On page 964, (1906), H. H. Moe reminds us of this question, and gives his views. It is quite a long time since I "sparred" with Mr. Doolittle, I am not one of the "sparring" kind, unless I can see some gross error to redress, and the present subject is too indefinite to give any one a fair chance for dis- cussion. Perhaps the best thing I can do to answer the question is to cite my own experience. Mr. Moe says that each of us has what he calls a "prop" in addi- tion to the bees, to keep us going. In the early '70's I had no such prop. It is true, we were rearing queens, and selling a few. But is not this legitimate bee-keeping? Must the bee-keeper sell only honey? Is not the sale of colo- nies or queens a legitimate part of bee- culture? For a number of years, I had nothing else. I can remember several seasons when we harvested from 40,000 to 50,000 pounds of honey. How many colonies did we keep? From 150 to 600. The manufacture and sale of comb foundation was just an accident—a re- sult of conditions. We had bought a mill to make up our own , and it turned out that we could work our neighbors' wax and give them better satisfaction than any other, and so the business was built. But bee-keeping as a business was my principal ooccupation for some 15 years, and as I have al- ready said, in the American Bee Jour- nal, there was a time, when, if any one else had been entrusted with the care of any of our apiaries, I would have expected those bees to be entirely ruined. I got bravely over this notion quite a while ago. How many colonies must we keep to become well-to-do? Why, it depends upon the apiar
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