How to Go Broke Keeping Honey Bees

with acknowledgments to How to Grow Broke Farming, as issued by the Division of Extension, University of Tennessee, in 1922 

1. Recognize that the needs of the beekeeper are clearly paramount to those of the bees.  
2. Treat all of your colonies the same – after all, they’re only bees. 
3. Don’t plan the operations in your apiary – thinking is hard work. 
4. Eliminate all ‘competitive’ species in the nearby environment,  eg. feral bees, solitary bees, bumble and carpenter bees.
5. Use herbicides to create a ‘perfect’ lawn
6. Cut down all trees, especially those that are dead, and plant either a maintenance-free green hedge or a mono-crop like corn.  
7. Ignore the bees except for the annual extraction of all of their honey; after all they are there to serve us. 
8. Insist that if the methods used by your grandfather were good enough for him, they are good enough for you. 
9. Be independent; don’t consult with the local beekeepers, don’t contribute to your local beekeeper association, and don’t read the research of so-called experts.  
10. When a colony fails, rather than analyze the reasons (again, too much thinking involved) simply replace it with a package from somewhere with a sub-tropical climate, using the money you would otherwise spend on your family if you had followed a good system of beekeeping.