GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



April. 1918 



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FEOM Mr. Har- 

 ry H. Coope', 

 a sideline r of 

 Griswold, Iowa, 

 comes anotlier 

 suggestion to 

 beekeepers to 

 help out those 

 who have gone 

 to the war. He 



is willing, he says, to do his bit to help any- 

 one anywhere near him, and thinks if every 

 beekeejper would do the same, many bee 

 A-ards, instead of being sold, might be held 

 "intact for the return of their owners. The 

 picture shows Mr. Cooper with a late swarm 

 hived on full sheets of foundation. ' ' Com- 

 mon" bees he calls them, so I suppose they 

 are blacks, yet he says they are very gentle, 

 and you see he is handling them without a 

 veil. 



Owing to American foul brood having gain- 

 ed a bad hold, his little apiary was greatly 

 reduced last year, and he plans to build up 

 this year by pound packages. Then he will 



Beekeeping as a Side Line 



1 



Grace Allen 



A late swarm hived on full sheets of foundation. 



run entirely for extracted honey. Last year 

 scale hive's showed the best result from 

 clover flow, running for comb honey, 12 

 pounds a day; the best from the fall flow, 

 running for extracted, 15 pounds. 



Mr. Cooper's remarks about the time he 

 gives to his sideline are interesting, so I 

 quote: "I am a telephone man by trade, and 

 handle the bees as a sideline. I can handle 

 a pretty fair-sized exchange and quite a 

 bunch of bees, with a little help from my 

 wife and working a little overtime. I figure 

 on about one to two hours every day, with 

 50 colonies, and a little time at night when 

 I feel like it." 



Notice that "with a little help from my 

 wife." Don't you think that sidelines that 

 everybody can enjoy and help with are the 

 very nicest kind of all? At our house, we 

 like best to ride hobbies that carry double. 



It is still a lit- 

 tle early to re- 

 port on the re- 

 sults of packed 

 hives versus un- 

 packed. Indeed, 

 a complete report 

 can be made only 

 when the honey 

 is harvested. But 

 to date, the packed hives show up splendidly. 

 For the first time I have had winter losses in 

 my little apiary. One colony, not packed, 

 perished and was robbed out. One (with a super 

 of leaves and leaves on both sides) flying on 

 Jan. 25, showed a month later a great heap of 

 bees which had died only recently, and not a 

 cell of honey in the hive — evidently a strong 

 colony, starved. (Thought I was sure of 

 stores, too.) A prompt testing of the others 

 by the time-honored method of "hefting" 

 the back of the hive revealed several colo- 

 nies dangerously light. These were hastily 

 examined, and one fed that very evening. 

 Several others may need it later. Stores in 

 general seem to be lighter than usual, and 

 beekeepers here are hoping that what looks 

 at present like an early spring will really 

 prove to be one, and not get frost-nipped 

 later. Today (March 9), the first bit of fruit 

 bloom — the veteran old plum, that always 

 leads the procession rather far in advance, 

 being now in practically full bloom. But 

 high winds are making it impossible for the 

 bees to fly. Elm and maple came out un- 

 usually early; and one warm day in early 

 February when I had been puzzling over the 

 pollen that was coming in before I could dis- 

 cover any available source, the proprietor of 

 a new near-by greenhouse informed me that 

 we were in partnership, as my bees had taken 

 possession of his place while the windows and 

 ventilators were thrown open to the warm 

 ^^r- * * * 



It seems to me I have never seen so much 

 young white clover. Town yards are full of 

 it, and it is in constant evidence along the 

 sides of the streets. Our walks are all 

 punctuated with exclamations: "Just look 

 at the clover here! and here! and there!" 

 There may be many a slip, for all that we 

 strive, 'twixt clover in spring and honey in 

 hive, but it looks good right now and we're 

 ready for the best that may come. 

 * * * 



These up-to-date, progressive methods are 

 rapidly taking hold in North Carolina. In 

 one of his excellent circular letters to his 

 bee club. County Agent Bruce Anderson of 

 Winston-Salem tells them this little story: 

 "I wish to bring to your attention the record 

 of J. M. Weavil, Kernersville, N. C, illus- 

 trating the efiiciency of bee-club method3. He 

 transferred part of his bees into standard 

 10-frame hives in 1915. Two of these colo- 

 nies were Italianized in 1916; one of them 

 this year (1917) produced 140 pounds of hon- 

 ey and had no swarm. The other, with its 

 one swarm, produced 140 pounds also. (His 



