w 



November, 1918 



E liad such 



a nice Fair 



— " we " 

 meaning the ex- 

 hibiting - honey 

 producers o f 

 Tennessee, main 

 liners, side lin- 

 ers, profession- 

 als, amateurs — 



all there together — the lion right beside the 

 lamb. The whole Agricultural Building 

 won great praise for itself, and, as the ad- 

 miring throngs sauntered down its goodly 

 length, past fine fruits and fancy vegetables 

 and famous grains, past demonstration 

 booths and the really splendid line of com- 

 munity exhibits, they came at last to the end 

 that was given over, entire, to the Apiarv 

 Section. All up against the glassed-in end 

 the Apiary exhibits ranged, the light from 

 the windows softened by white muslin — and 

 it made a goodly sight indeed. The worst 

 thing was the realization that there was 

 practically no honey besides the exhibits! 

 But it was a very nice Fair — on a painfully 

 short crop. Eed, white, and blue were the 

 chief decorations, not only of our own sec- 

 tion, but of the whole building, and, indeed, 

 practically the entire Fair; yes, and proba- 

 bly of every fair in the country. What 

 other colors could be used in these great 

 times, so thrilling and inspiring and so deep- 

 ly significant? 



* * * 



Armed with sugar certificates, we faced 

 the anticipated fall feeding, and lo, there 

 came a flow — a fall flow sufficient for our 

 great need. Even the new little colonies, 

 the 1918 increase, have most of them stored 

 enough for winter, some of them even 

 crowding their queens a bit; while those 

 that may lack somewhat can quite surely be 

 supplied from their more wealthy neighbors. 

 Droughts are surely most distressing and 

 disastrous affairs; yet, sometimes, after hav- 

 ing done their worst with the midsummer 

 and the late summer, leaving bees utterly 

 comfortless and beekeepers almost without 

 hope, they dissolve gracefully away into the 

 most desirable of fall rains; and the smart- 

 weed comes, and the boneset and goldenrod, 

 and a great profusion of tangled aster. Such 

 was 1918 in middle Tennessee. 



Bittorweed also has come; West Nash- 

 ville is gay with it. The bees we left here 

 under our own vine and fig tree are happily 

 busy on it. I wonder if they really like it. 

 Maybe they don 't ' ' like ' ' any honey — mere- 

 ly eat to live. Anyway they are filling story- 

 and-a-half hives. And are welcome to what 

 they're storing. I've sampled it. And I 

 eat for two reasons myself — one is to live, 

 and there's another. The other makes me 

 willing to leave bitterweed honey to the 

 bees. 



As to goldenrod, more than one beekeeper 

 in this section has said he never saw bees 

 working it. Mr. Buchanan says that of the 

 two species most common here, one only is 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



671 



worked by the 

 bees. That must 

 be the one grow- 

 ing alongside 

 the Mill Creek 

 Valley Pike, 

 then, the bees 

 have enjoyed it 

 so this fall — ten 

 or a dozen on a 



clump; more on the goldenrod, in fact, than 



on the aster right beside it. 



* * * 



When you moved your first bees, you were 

 very, very, very careful, weren't you? 

 Naturally. And the undertaking was a com- 

 plete success, wasn't it? Of course. Then 

 you did it again, still carefully, and again 

 and again — always successfulfy and always 

 with growing ease and confidence. You 

 never became exactly careless — in fact,- not 

 at all careless. Just less anxious and fussy. 

 And then — something happened? I thought 

 so. Something often does — at about that 

 point in one's career. Perhaps during the 

 summer extra ventilation was given to one 

 or two hives (one is enough) by the inser- 

 tion of chips or small pieces of wood; and 

 because the pieces were never very thick 

 anyway, and they had been crushed down 

 still smaller and sort of crumbled away, 

 and the bees had camouflaged the crevices 

 with propolis (which everybody pronounces 

 as he pleases and most of them differently), 

 because of these things and the additional 

 fact of your being experienced instead of 

 fussy, you noticed nothing of the extra 

 space between hive-body and bottom-board. 

 Then probably, when the wagon was about 

 half loaded, the darkey was told to turn that 

 particular hive from crosswise of the wagon 

 to lengthwise. And then it happened. Eight 

 thru those exposed cracks. And it kept on 

 happening. And one of you ''hollered" — 

 you or your husband or your wife or some- 

 body — just plain "hollered." And one of 

 you, nimble with hammer and tacks, and 

 very brave, added wire cloth unto wire 

 cloth and all around the edges, and the other 

 added smoke unto smoke and all around the 

 edges. But it had happened. Like spoken 

 words that can not be unsaid, so are bees that 

 escape at night. They can not be returned 

 to their hive. Neither does smoke prevail 

 upon them, nor moral suasion influence them. 

 They are out. The rest is up to you. If you 

 have only one veil, you give it to your dar- 

 key. And go on loading. And take your 

 medicine. Then, quite likely, when you 

 start off, part of the loose Ijees get lost, 

 while the rest quietly ride the outside of 

 several wire cloths. By the time you reach 

 your destination, they are meek, subdued 

 little groups that cause no trouble at all. 

 And you — if you are wise — go home wiser 

 still, realizing that you have fared far bet- 

 ter than you deserve. 



* * * 



We have all read almost interminable ad- 

 vice about what to do when bees swarm, 



