IHTOBKK 1, 1915 



791 



Grace Allen 



THE DIXIE BEE I NashvU.e,Te„„. 



At the present writing we are 

 tVediiiy all our increase, and look- 

 iiii;- hopefully for a sufficient fall 

 How (o winter on. And we are not 

 the only ones feeding. "Giving 

 'em a hundred pounds of sugar a 

 day," a beeman from a neighbor- 

 ing county cheeifully announced last week. 

 « • • 



Though I did not know Mrs. H. G. 

 Acklin. ruaj' I not bring my woman's 

 tribute of sympathetic appreciation to lay 

 alongside the others heaped upon her 

 memory? It always gives me a thrill of 

 pleasure to hear of successful women — -a 

 pleasure intensified in this case by the real- 

 ization that Mrs. Acklin met sorrow brave- 

 ly, faced the world single-handed, raised a 

 charming daughter, and was a lover of bees. 

 And may I also send all my good wishes, 

 like white doves, to the recent bride, Mrs. 

 Howard K. Calvert? I suspect she knows 

 that God didn't put all his poetry into rain- 

 bows ! 



» • • 



We tried hard to have a field meet last 

 month; and, for that matter, we had it, 

 after a fasliion, but not a fashion of our 

 own choosing. The weatherman chose the 

 mode; and, though the editor wisely sug- 

 gests that the weather is of less importance 

 than what was said, still in this particular 

 instance (even the editor will grant this) 

 the weather was of prime importance, be- 

 cause of what it caused not to be said. 

 Briefly, it rained — not just that one day, 

 but all day every day for many days. We 

 were so sure it would stop by the date set 

 that the meeting was not postponed. It 

 can't rain forever, we said. But it almost 

 can. we found out. for it almost did. So 

 on the day itself, after standing first on one 

 foot of our indecision and then on the 

 other, we finally decided to go, because, 

 since it evidently teas to rain forever, we 

 would have to hold our meeting in the rain 

 some time, and it might as well be now. 

 When the last nose was counted, we found 

 we had gathered together seven brave and 

 faithful souls. In the light of the adjec- 

 tives, it might seem more modest to say six; 

 but as it cost a doUar and a half to take 

 the water-spots out of a delightfully absurd 

 pontree coat, I shall allow myself to remain 

 solidlv classified with the virtuously faith- 

 ful. 



It was a good meeting for all that. No 

 formality (with seven!), but an increased 

 friendliness, which of itself makes a per- 

 fectly good reason for holding a meeting, 

 though nothing else be accomplished. We 

 talked informally of such things as diifer- 

 ent ways of making increase, the advan- 

 tages and disadvantages of various-sized 

 hives, stores for winter, and this year's 

 crop — an average in this locality of thirty 

 to forty pounds, and the prediction that 

 next year'll be better, which it surely will 

 if a clover year follows a wet year. 



Foul brood came in for its share of 

 shuddering comment. Our state inspector 

 told how somebody had imported (unknow- 

 ingly, needless to say) some diseased combs 

 into the state, and things had immediately 

 happened in his own apiary. " He has had 

 his own punishment," Mr. Davis remarked, 

 after hearing the ston^: "but what about 

 the woods around him? " 



" That's it," Dr. Ward answered with a 

 sigh; "what about the woods?" 



And that is it, apparently. What about 

 the woods? 



It was in the dash down the road for a 

 home-bound car that a particularly lively 

 shower spotted(?) the pongee coat. The 

 shower passed before the car came, the sun 

 slip]^ed out, and there at the last was a 

 rainbow, the brightest and most beautiful 

 I ever saw, with a secondary one beyond, 

 delicate as a rainbow dream. If I had 

 thought of it sooner I'd have tried to put 

 it into a poem. Yet, after all, no one could 

 really put a rainbow into a poem. And 

 why should we try? The poem is there in 

 the rainbow. How all its colors rhyme ! A 

 perfect poem it is, and God wrote it, with 

 the swing of eternity in its long rhythmic 

 lines and a divineness of beauty in every 

 lovely deepening shade, from the rim of 

 red on the one edge to the rim of violet on 

 the other. 



Some other day we'll have a field meeting, 

 boiling over with beekeepers and enthusi- 

 asm, and in the meantime perhaps it would 

 l>e well for us to act on one of the sugges- 

 tions of that wet windy meeting on the 

 bungalow porch, and make the weatherman 

 an honorary member of the association ; 

 then in the future he may show more tender 

 consideration for the brand of weather he 

 piovides for the beekeepers of Tennessee. 



