It may be safely said that any place where farming, gardening, or fruit
raising can be successfully followed is adapted to the profitable
keeping of bees--in a limited way at least, if not extensively. Many
of these localities will support extensive apiaries. In addition to
this there are, within the borders of the United States, thousands of
good locations for the apiarist--forest, prairie, swamp, and mountain
regions--where agriculture has as yet not gained a foothold, either
because of remoteness from markets or the uninviting character of soil
or climate. This pursuit may also be followed in or near towns and, to
a limited extent, in large cities. It even happens in some instances
that bees in cities or towns find more abundant pasturage than in
country locations which are considered fair.
The city of Washington is an example of this, bees located here
doing better during the spring and summer months than those in the
surrounding country, owing to the bee pasturage found in the numerous
gardens and parks and the nectar-yielding shade trees along the
streets. This is due mainly to the fact that the linden, or basswood,
which is rarely seen in the country about Washington, has been planted
extensively in the parks and for miles on both sides of many of the
streets and avenues of the city.[A] Another source in the city not
found extensively in the country adjacent is melilot, Bokhara or
sweet clover (_Melilotus alba_), which has crept into vacant lots and
neglected corners, and diffuses its agreeable perfume to the delight of
all city dwellers, whether human or insect. The writer has practiced
with profit the transportation of nearly a hundred colonies from a
country apiary 10 miles distant to Washington for the linden and sweet
clover yield. He has also seen a prosperous apiary kept on the roof
of a business house in the heart of New York City, and on several
occasions has visited another apiary of 30 to 40 colonies, which a
skillful apiarist had located on the roof of his store in the business
portion of Cincinnati, Ohio, and from which 30 to 40 pounds of honey
per colony were usually obtained each year.
[A] Several species of lindens are included in these plantings, but
none yields more than our common American linden, or basswood (_Tilia
americana_).
Another apiary personally inspected was located directly on the sand
banks forming the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. These bees were, of
course, unable to forage westward from the apiary, hence had but half
"a field." The soil of the area over which the bees ranged was a light
sand, unproductive for most crops, and the region was little developed
agriculturally, most of the honey coming from forest trees and from
shrubs and wild plants growing in old burnings and windfalls, yet 25 to
30 pounds of excellent honey per colony was the usual surplus obtained.
At one time the writer had an apiary in the city of Detroit, Mich.,
where the wide river on one side cut off nearly half of the pasturage,
yet the bees did will. And again for several years he had an apiary
containing from 100 to 200 colonies of bees on a very sterile coast
of the Island of Cyprus, and another nearly as large located but a
few rods from the seashore on a rocky point of Syria. Both of these
apiaries were devoted in the main to queen rearing, yet the yield of
honey was not an unimportant item, especially in the Syrian apiary,
while in the Cyprus apiary some honey was frequently taken, and it was
rarely necessary to feed the bees for stores. In the latter case about
one-fourth of the range was out off by the sea, the bees being located
at the head of an open bay and a short distance from the shore, while
the location of the Syrian apiary prevented the bees from securing
half of the usual range, hence their greater prosperity was due to the
nature and quantity of the pasturage of their limited range.
It is evident, therefore, that no one similarly located need be
deterred from keeping bees, provided the nectar-yielding trees and
plants of the half range are of the right sort and abundant. Moreover,
regions so rough and sterile or so swampy as to give no encouragement
to the agriculturist, or even to the stock raiser, will often yield a
good income to the bee keeper, insignificant and apparently worthless
herbs and shrubs furnishing forage for the bees. The ability of the
bees to range over areas inaccessible to other farm stock and to draw
their sustenance from dense forests when the timber is of the right
kind, and the freedom which, because of their nature, must be accorded
them to pasture on whatever natural sources are within their range of 3
or 4 miles, must be taken into account in estimating the possibilities
of a locality. It will be found that very few localities exist in our
country where at least a few colonies of bees may not be kept. Whether
a large number might be profitably kept in a given locality can be
decided only by a careful examination as to the honey-producing flora
within range of the apiary (see pp. 12 and 26-29).
The danger of overstocking a given locality is very frequently
exaggerated. Each range, it is self-evident, has a limit. The writer
is, however, fully convinced, after long experience in numerous
localities and under the most varied circumstances, that three or four
times as many colonies as are commonly considered sufficient to stock
a given range may usually be kept with a relative degree of profit.
But to secure such results sufficient care and close observation have
too frequently not been given in the selection of bees adapted to the
locality and conditions. A more frequent failure has been lack of
proper attention to the individual colonies, particularly as to the
age and character of the queens in each. The space given for brood
rearing is often too small, and frequently no care is given to secure
the proper amount of brood in time to insure a population ready for
each harvest. Attention to these points would enable great numbers of
bee keepers who now regard 50 to 100 colonies as fully stocking their
range to reach several hundreds in a single apiary, with slight or no
diminution in the average yield per colony.