Page 139 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

Bees may be secured at very reasonable prices. You may buy a twopound
package of baby bees, with a young queen, for as little as two dollars. Two or
three of such packages will start a very fine colony for you, and will soon be
producing a hundred pounds of honey annually or better. It may be pointed
out that the existing demand for honey far exceeds visible supply, and that a
good price may be obtained for your entire honey yield all the year round.
Wholesale prices vary somewhat in different sections of the country, ranging
from thirty to fifty-five cents a bail. Retail prices range between forty-five
cents and eighty-five cents a bail. In most sections, however, neither
wholesale prices nor retail fluctuate much more than ten cents a bail.

There’saBigDemandfor OrnamentalBirds
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I

TURNED sixty acres, not suitable for farming, into pens for raising
ornamental birds,” said John Keller, of Kenosha, Wisconsin. “This land has a
pond at one end and a shallow creek runs through it, but the rocks and
marshy spots make it bad pasture. It was the pond that made me think of
trying my luck with swans. These sixty acres, being handy to the house,
would be ideal for swan raising I figured, because I could easily watch the
birds. I paid sixty-five dollars for a pair of white swans, fenced off pen space
for them at the edge of the pond. I read a good deal about the swan’s habits
and found it is an affectionate bird which, once mated, will never leave its
mate. They lay in March, April and May, prefer to live by themselves, and
must be kept away from animals. My first brood was seven young swans and
by the end of the summer, I had eighteen swans. The swan, being very hardy,
is not difficult to raise. It requires less care than a turkey or a chicken, and
brings higher prices. My original investment was sixty-five dollars for the
first pair and thirty dollars for fencing. By Christmas, I had sold eight pair of
young swans, at seventy dollars a pair. I kept the others for breeding. In two
and a half years, I’ve raised and sold a hundred-and-fifty pair of swans at an
average price of sixty dollars.