c 



Tune, 1918 



THERE'S one 

 thing s i d e - 

 line beekeep- 

 ers must remem- 

 b e r , especially 

 those in cities, 

 keeping a few 

 hives in their 

 backyards. I t 

 doesn 't pay to 



get discouraged because their bees don 't 

 produce as much per colony as some that 

 are reported in the journals. Locality is a 

 big, big factor in beekeeping, one of the 

 most important, if not actually the most 

 important. You may be as proficient as 

 study and intelligent application will make 

 you, but if your bees can 't reach any good 

 pasturage, they can not pile up the honey 

 like those that, with perhaps not nearly so 

 much attention, have a wealth of nectar- 

 bearing bloom around them. When a man 

 who is keeping bees commercially decides 

 his location is not good enough, he may move 

 his bees and completely change the results 

 of his labor. But the side-liner is not likely 

 to do that (tho we've moved part of ours 

 this year) ; his bees are like his chickens 

 and his strawberry patch and his garden, a 

 pleasant and profitable part of his home 

 yard. So he may have to be content with 

 an average of 40 or 50 pounds, while his 

 country friends tell him of their 100-pound 

 average; and he reads of hives that give, 

 under exceptional conditions, 300 or 400 

 pounds. Yet there is scarcely a spot where 

 there is not enough nectar to pay to have 

 two or three hives of bees to help supply 

 the family needs and to add intensely to the 

 delights of the owner. 



« » ♦ 



I don 't like being the exception that 

 proves the rule, page 268, May. I 'd so much 

 rather be one of the straight irrefutable 

 proofs. But now that the season is nicely 

 started, the case of packed hives vs. un- 

 packed doesn 't look a bit brighter for the 

 packed. One of the four colonies in the 

 quadruple packing case perished (any 

 amount of packing won 't save a colony that 

 loses its queen); another, when the packing 

 was removed the last week in April, was 

 scarcely more than a nucleus; another is 

 fair; while the fourth is one of the best 

 five colonies in the yard — the other four, 

 including the very best one of all, having 

 gone thru the winter with no protection 

 other than supers of leaves and contracted 

 entrances. When putting these colonies in 

 the packing case in the fall, we were at some 

 pains to take four good ones. 



The two that were packed in big single 

 cases came out among the weakest in the 

 yard this spring; in fact, only No. 2 in the 

 quadruple case and one unpacked colony 

 were so backward. These two, however, in 

 the single cases, were not particularly strong 

 when packed, being among the 1917 increase 

 built up from nuclei. Oti the other hand, 

 the other colonies of the 1917 increase, built 



QLE\NINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Beekeeping as a Side Line 



LJ 



1 



Grace Alien 



LJ 



353 



up side by side 

 with these two, 

 under exactly 

 similar c o n d i - 

 tions and man- 

 agement, a n (1 

 wintered with- 

 out any protec- 

 t i o n whatever, 

 came out better. 

 Of course I am not so silly as to attribute 

 this to the lack of packing, tho had the dif- 

 ference been on the other side, I would 

 doubtless have given the packing the credit. 

 [Until full details of packing, entrances, 

 wind protection, stores, strength of colony, 

 age of queens and other essentials are given 

 we do not think that conclusions should be 

 drawn, especially not in so small an apiary. 

 We suggest a more complete trial next vear. 



—Editor.] 



« « « 



This has been an absurd sort of season 

 here, so far, an early spring that was also 

 late. I have heard that there are men who 

 are very courtly until they have won their 

 brides, and then, after the wedding, become 

 cold and neglectful. That is how this 

 spring has treated its blossoms. Most friend- 

 ly and smiling and inviting thruout March, 

 the spring turned a cold shoulder when 

 black locust had come with its fragrance 

 and white clover with its beauty, and most 

 of April was chill and drear and disappoint- 

 ing. Even the night of May Day, while we 

 drove to the country with a few recently 

 purchased bees, we were be-coated and be- 

 rugged as tho it were winter, and that night 

 there was a heavy frost. Frost in Tennes- 

 see on May Day! And that, after clover 

 blossoms on Easter Sunday, the last day of 

 March! Badly mixed, indeed, and not a bit 

 ideal for bees or beekeepers — or farmers. 

 One Nashville man had a small field of tur- 

 nips in full bloom for seed, for which he had 

 already received an offer of $1,200.00, when 

 the frost came and killed it all. But pros- 

 pects are good now, and there is a wealth 

 of white clover in bloom. 

 « * » 



There's been conside'-ible earlv swarming, 

 or efforts iti that direction. One side-liner 

 with only four hives lost two swarms before 

 Apr. 25. Locust and clover both coming un- 

 usually early must have excited the bees. 

 Colonies with plenty of room, the double 

 brood-chambers being by no means crowded, 

 started queen-cells before anyone suspected 

 them. I wish swarming were orthodox, 

 anyway. Artificial increase, however you 

 make it, is a cold business-like proposition, 

 while a swarm in the air is a thing of thrill 

 and romance. But please don 't think, be- 

 cause of the last stanza of this month's 

 verse, that I customarily let mine go off! 

 Customarily I don't have any; and never 

 lost but one, a little ' ' tee-ninetsy ' ' that de- 

 serted one August, the day after being 

 hived in a shallow super and left out in the 

 hot sun. We all admired their spirit in go- 



