April, 1910. 



121 



American l&ee Journal 



Our Bee-Keeping Sisters 



Conducted by Emma M. Wilson. Marengo. 111. 



Your Sweets, But Not You 



We are indebted to the courtesy of 

 Mr. Eugene Libby for the following 

 brightly written lines, clipped from the 

 Portland, Maine, Telegram. The cap- 

 tion is perhaps the best comment upon 

 the sad refrain, "They want your 

 sweets, but they want not you;" but let 

 us thankfully remember that that sad 

 refrain is not of universal application : 



■• TisTrve. "TisPiTY. PityTis'TisTri'e." 



Roses sweet in your dainty dresses. 



Royal pansies in velvet gowns. 

 Fair young wheat that the wind caresses. 



Brown-eyed daisies with golden crowns; 

 And oh. my drooping and rich ripe clover. 



Your hearts are heavy, but not with dew! 

 Your ardent bee is a faithless rover. 



He wants your sweets, but he wants not 

 you! 

 All ye wilding and winsome beauties. 



Rich in spoils for that bandit crew. 

 Bee and butterfly, whose pursuit is 



Fora^'ing sweets, if you only knew 

 Why they waver, and Hit. and hover. 



The same forever and aye is true ! 

 The reason is one. the wide world over. 



They want your sweets, but they want not 

 you! 



—Clara Marcelle ^reene. 



Cocoons and Wax-Moths in Hives 



Early last spring I discovered cocoons of 

 wax-moth in thecornersof a dovetailed hive. 

 I set a new hive close to the old one. lifted 

 the old hive and carefully set it on the 

 ground, brushed off the bottom-board of the 

 hive of dead bees and cocoons, set a new 

 hive-body on the bottom, then took the 

 frames of the old hive and put them into the 

 new one. put on a cover, set the old hive 

 close in front of the new one. and shoved the 

 bees into their clean home. They did not 

 seem to mind, and went to work at once. 



Ohio Bee-Woman. 



It was well enough to get the old 

 hive emptied so that the cocoons might 

 be cleaned out, but their presence was 

 an index that there had been something 

 still worse — worms in the combs. A 

 colony ought never to be suffered so 

 poor and weak as to allow the worms 

 tranquilly to plaster cocoons in the 

 corners of the hive. 



may be interested. It somewhat surprises 

 me that it itff/>riscs them. 



Before I had bees I was a school-marm, 

 teaching a country district school. One day 

 I saw an advertisement in an agricultural 

 paper of the "A B C of Bee Culture." Hav- 

 ing always had a liking for the objects of 

 Nature— birds and bees and bugs and bee- 

 tles and flowers and trees, of which I used 

 to gather specimens to examine with a 

 microscope — I became interested, and re- 

 solved to send for the book. Reading it 

 brought on the worst kind of a bee-fever, 

 not only the umiders of bee-keeping of which 

 I read there, but also the greater iiide^endciu-e 

 which I thought I could secureattracted me. 

 and in the spring of i8qo I bought 2 colonies 

 of bees in box-hives. 



Now began my troubles. O those first les- 

 sons in bee-keeping! Stings! I wonder if 

 any other beginner was stung any worse, or 

 any more, than I was that first season. I 

 waded right into it. and I was a sight. I 

 actually f/Vi/ with the pain. I even wished 

 that I had never seen those horrid bees, and 

 that something might happen to rid me of 

 them forever; although I never would have 

 confessed myself defeated to any one. 



But nothing happened, and after a time I 

 learned better how to handle them. I bought 

 some rubber gloves, made a good bee-veil, 

 and learned to keep the smoker from going 

 out. My enthusiasm returned. I subscribed 

 for a bee-paper, and read eagerly the articles 

 from the pens of old and experienced bee- 

 keepers. Do all beginners read those first? 

 Does not every enthusiastic beginner (and 

 what one is not enthusiastic expect to be- 

 come one of these experts some time, and 

 does he care very much for reading begin- 

 ners' reports? 



I also bought several other bee-books, and 

 later subscribed for all the bee-papers. I 

 would have been the loser had I not done so. 

 for I think I have learned something from 

 each one more than enough to pay the sub- 

 scription price during my whole oee-keeping 

 life. One bee-paper alone by no means con- 

 tains nearly all there is to tell of bee-keep- 

 ing experience and information. A beginner 

 should read them n//— and I am yet a be- 

 ginner. . , , . i_ 1 



I made a visit to a neighboring bee-keeper 

 where Isawmyfirst patent hive, andsecured 

 a sample, after which all my earlier hives 

 were made. I also visited Mr. France, at 

 Platteville. and saw how they handled their 

 bees there. It was a revelation to me. and a 

 most valuable lesson. Actual demonstration 

 is way ahead of any written description or 

 instruction in a bee-book. A beginner can 

 do nothing more profitable than to visit some 

 near-by brother in bee-keeping. 



I worked with bees in the summer, and at- 

 tended an Art Institute in Chicago in winter, 

 having given up teaching as soon as I had 

 bees enough to give a little revenue. I kept 

 only between 60 and 70 colonies, and thought 



A Successful Wisconsin Bee-Woman 



Attendants upon the bee-conventions 

 at Chicago will not have failled to see 

 one sister almost always there, sitting 

 quietly with little or nothing to say, 

 ^ but intent upon all going on. When 

 r told, "That is Miss Mathilde Candler, 

 who keeps 300 colonies of bees," one is 

 sure to take a second look at her, and 

 H one engages her in conversation one 

 finds that what she says is well worth 

 hearing. The following story of her 

 beginning and growth as a bee-keeper, 

 which is taken from the Bee-Keepers' 

 Review, cannot fail to be of interest: 



" How did you ever come to take up bee- 

 keeping as a business?" is a Question I am 

 often asked. It seems to surprise some peo- 

 ple to find a woman who is a bee-keeper, 

 although I do not know why. Woman is 

 taking a more or less active part in all the 

 worlds work, and I cannot see why she may 

 not become interested in bees, or anything 

 else, for that matter, in which human beings 



that was about all my locality could profit 

 ably maintain. Now I have about three 

 times that number in the same locality, and 

 it is only an average one; but the manage- 

 ment is different. 



Financial losses and diflnculties finally 

 compelled me to give up my art studies, 

 .^bout this time there appearedtlie editorial 

 in the Bee-Keepers' Review urging the keep- 

 ing of " more bees." I resolved to do so. in 

 the hope of recovering what I had lost, and 

 increased to about luo colonies. The follow- 

 ing spring I commenced an out-apiary about 

 8 miles from home. I started it with only 18 

 colonies. That was a mistake. I should 

 have taken half the colonies in the yard. I 

 had no money with which to buy hives and 

 fixtures, but I had a lot of discarded hive- 

 bodies, and I resolved to use these in my out- 

 yard. That was another mistake. I should 

 have used them in the home-yard where I 

 could better watch them and give the atten- 

 tion that old and worn-out hives sometimes 

 demand. 



I had an opportunity to buy some cheap 

 lumber on credit, and had some nice bee- 

 sheds put up. three in number. 6x16 feet. 

 Having neither covers nor bottom-boards. I 

 put the bees in these sheds or house-api- 

 aries, and increased until they were full, 

 and the rest I put outside. 



It is uphill work building up an apiary 

 without covers or bottom-boards. I used 

 dirt bottom-boards, sawdust bottom-boards 

 and wood; and. for covers, many hives were 

 just covered with paper and any boards I 

 could find to use. weighteddown with stones 

 so the wind could not blow them off. Colo- 

 nies do not become very strong under those 

 conditions. And in the fall I had a lot of 

 weak colonies to unite; and in the spring 

 a lot of dead or very weak ones, caused by 

 mice gettinginto the hives. But every year 

 I made some advance, until now my colonies 

 are in pretty fair shape, and I have increased 

 both yards until I have about 300 colonies. 



I used to do nearly all the work alone, and 

 did much for which I was neither fitted nor 

 strong enough. Then I got a neighbor boy to 

 help me during part of the school vacation. 

 Now I employ help whenever I need it. pro- 

 vided I can get it. Help is always hard to 

 get; especially help in a bee-yard, and I 

 often have to do everything alone, and work 

 from daylight until dark. Lifting is the 

 hardest part of bee-work for a woman, and I 

 think I've done my share of it. 



I keep no horse, but go to the out-apiary 

 by train, as it is near the railroad station. 

 Board is cheap, and I remain until the work 

 is finished, doing only what seems most nec- 

 essary at the time. Of course, with so many 

 bees, and insufficient or no help. I cannot 

 hope to have things as they ought to be. or 

 as I would like to have them. I just do as 

 well as I can. and let it go at that. 



M.1THILDE Candler. 

 Cassville. Wis. 



Honey as Toil for Stings 



From 10 colonies, in 1909, I took 260 

 pounds of salable honey. I did not 

 weigh the unfinished sections, taking 

 them as toll for numerous stings. 



Ohio Bee-Woman. 



Sketches of Beedomites 



A. J. KING 



It seems that after I had prepared a 

 short sketch of the life of Prof. King 

 for Gleanings in Bee Culture, the edi- 

 tor of the American Bee Journal wrote 

 the Professor for a sketch of his life, 

 not knowing that I had about that time 

 submitted my " copy " on the same sub- 

 ject to Gleanings. Now it happens that 

 Prof. King asks me to send the "Old 

 Reliable" the "little biographical 

 sketch" Mr. York wrote for, so it is in 

 this way that I come to write up the 



veteran bee-keeper a second time with- 

 in a few months. In doing this I now 

 give a more complete resume of his 

 work. 



Albert J. King learned to handle bees 

 when he was quite young, for bees were 

 kept on the familv homestead in north- 

 ern Ohio long before the advent of 

 movable-comb hives. The bee-keeper 

 of the family was his brother. Nelson 

 H. King, who was quite a genius, and 

 it was he, 1 believe, who invented the 

 American bee-hive. The invention of 

 this hive made the two brothers men- 



