GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



GENERAL 



■PONDENCE 



BUYING AND KEEPING BEES IN LOUISIANA 



BY G. FRANK PEASE 



Having made up my mind to buy more 

 bees I finally planned an automobile trip 

 south throug-h Indiana, Kentucky, Tennes- 

 see, and Alabama for that purpose. 



On Dec. 12, 1912, my wife and I started 

 from Battle Creek, Mich. Our load consist- 

 ed of a camping outfit containing a table, 

 three chairs, stove, box of cooking utensils, 

 grub-box, box of tools, trunk, bedding, tent, 

 canvas cover for auto, two guns, thirty 

 traps, fishing-tackle, four extra tires, and 

 some other necessities. When loaded, the 

 outfit weighed two tons. 



would send the dog clear over against us, 

 and brakes squealing so that if something 

 had broken we would have been dashed 

 many feet over steep embankments. 



We had to change tires thirty-four times 

 between Michigan and Birmingham, Ala. 

 Sixty-inch ruts caused much trouble, for 

 our auto was only fiftj'-six inches between 

 wheels. A number of times we had to go 

 many miles out of our way (on account of 

 washed-out bridges), leading us often into 

 deep chuck-holes that had to be made with 

 a dash. 



A coiner of one yard in the spring soon after transferring. 



We started on rough frozen ground, and 

 wound up in the clay mud of the southern 

 rainy season. Many times we were in mud 

 above all four hubs, and had to pry up the 

 auto and lay rails to run out on. We 

 crossed nearly one hundred sti'eams. One 

 stream was sixty rods wide, and in two 

 places the water reached the floor of the 

 auto. It was rain, rain, rain, and mud, 

 mud, mud, for days and days. 



We coasted a mile in a number of places, 

 and four miles in one place with the engine 

 cut off and brakes set. We had to twist and 

 wind down some hills with bumps that 



■ Most beekeepers (except the few who 

 were up to date) kept their bees in tall 

 gums or hollow log's cut off and set up on 

 rocks. But few bees could be bought at a 

 place, and it would have been hard to buy 

 more than one hundred colonies in any one 

 locality ; and it would have been necessary 

 to draw them over rough roads from ten to 

 twenty miles to get them together in hives 

 that would hardly hold together. 



One man having a number of colonies 

 claimed he could take twelve worker bees 

 and one drone and make a good swarm in 

 three weeks ; and vet he would sell no colo- 



