are better than with more; do
not anticipate the golden harvest too soon. You will probably be
necessitated to discard some of the _extravagant_ reports of profits
from the apiary. Yet you will find one stock trebling, perhaps
quadrupling its price or value in products, while the one beside it
does nothing. In some seasons particularly favorable your stocks
collectively will yield a return of one or two hundred per cent.--in
others, hardly make a return for trouble. The proper estimate can be
made only after a number of years, when, if they have been judiciously
managed, and your ideas have not been too extravagant, you will be
fully satisfied. I have known a single stock in one season to produce
more than twenty dollars in swarms and honey, and ninety stocks to
produce over nine hundred dollars, when a few of the number added not a
farthing to the amount. I do not wish to hold out inducements for any
one to commence bee-keeping, and end it in disgust and disappointment.
But I would encourage all suitable persons to try their skill in bee
management. I say suitable persons, because there are many, very many,
not qualified for the charge. The careless, inattentive man, who leaves
his bees unnoticed from October till May, will be likely to complain of
ill success.

Whoever cannot find time to give his bees the needed care, but can
spend an hour each day obtaining gossip at the neighborhood tavern, is
unfit for this business. But he who has a home, and finds his
affections beginning to be divided between that and his companions of
the bar-room, and wishes to withdraw his interest from unprofitable
associates, and yet has nothing of sufficient power to break the bond,
to what can he apply with a better prospect of success, than to engage
in keeping bees? They make ample returns for each little care.
Pecuniary advantages are not all that may be gained--a great many
points concerning their natural history are yet in the dark, and many
are disputed. Would it not be a source of satisfaction to be able to
contribute a few more facts to this interesting subject, adding to the
science, and holding a share in the general fund? Supposing all the
mysteries pertaining to their economy discovered and elucidated,
precluding all chance of further additions, would the study be dry and
monotonous? On the contrary, the verification witnessed by ourselves
would be so fascinating and instructive, that we cannot avoid pitying
the condition of