MAKING A LIVING OUT OF BEES.
[To TIER EDITOR 01, TIIR 'EPIICTI.T011.1 Silk—Mr. Bolton Hall calls attention in last week's Spectator to the fact that in noticing his book I said : "We have yet to learn the names of half-a-dozen persons who have made a living "—Mr. Hall's phrase is "a comfortable living "—" out of bees." His reply is to quote the letter of an acquaintance giving the names of some American beekeepers who, on his own showing, "depend mainly" or "depend principally " upon bees for their living! In any case, I was referring not to American but to English beekeeping. Experts have always held that it was impossible to expect in England the revenue from bees that may be obtained in climates where there are longer honey harvests. It would not be worth while drawing attention to the matter if it were not that this loose reference to the profits of beekeeping is on a level with a great deal of current Writing about the profits of poultry and other small stockkeeping, which is every year the means of novices wasting their money on ill-considered schemes of going bitch to the land. The profitableness of bees is known to every body; but one does not hear of people in England who have reared families out of their gains from them. I have visited two of the most successful apiarists in the country ; neither !had any honey to sell. They made their money out of selling -stocks and appliances.—I am, Sir, &c.,
YOUR REVIEWER.
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