GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



H 



C 



Beekeeping as a Side Line 



EEE in the 



pretty lit- 

 1 1 e town 

 of Hinsdale, 

 about 17 miles 

 from Chicago, I 

 have been sit- 

 ting for 10 min- 

 utes gazing at a 

 sheet of blank 

 paper in a quiet typewriter, and nothing 

 happens. Dare I try to "write about the 

 National convention? The Editor mightn't 

 like it. The readers mightn't like it. The 

 National mightn't like it. Maybe it doesn't 

 belong to a side-line department, anyway. 

 But I am so full of it, so soaked with it to 

 the finger-tips, that nothing else will come 

 out; and my paper, unless filled with com- 

 ments on the National, threatens ^o remain 

 tragically blank. So — may I, Mr. Editor? 



The National Convention as Seen by a 

 Side-liner. 



Somehow I overlooked the fact of that 

 Chicago and Northwestern meeting, and 

 hurried from the train over to the Hotel 

 LaSalle, thinking to plunge promptly tho 

 tardily into the National, and soon I was 

 listening in great delight to Prof. Francis 

 Jaeger of St. Paul. 



Any convention was the right one that 

 could supply such a treat as that. He was 

 recounting some of his experiences ' ' over 

 there." That I missed the first of it was 

 my great misfortune; but I did hear about 

 the brick house in Monastir, with its walled 

 garden, and the beekeeper trying so hard 

 to be progressive; the 40 long trunklike 

 beehives with 27 Jumbo frames each; the 

 homemade foundation V4 inch thick, weigh- 

 ing a pound to the sheet; the extractor 

 made from sheetiron from the battlefields; 

 and the honey vinegar; and (soft pedal) the 

 honey wine (yes, and he knows how to make 

 stronger things, added the genial lecturer) ; 

 and the story of Prof. Jaeger's own bee- 

 keeping experiences — how he bought (only 

 the owner would take no pay) three of these 

 long-idea hives from the walled garden, and 

 drove into Monastir in a camouflaged auto, 

 he and his companions in peasant dress, 

 bringing out the bees right in the daytime, 

 tho it made a most exciting trip under the 

 falling shells; how he transferred the bees 

 into some modern hives shipped from the 

 A. I. Root Co.; and how they started prompt- 

 ly drawing out the new foundation. 



This was in August. There had been no 

 rain since May, and all the earth was bare 

 and dead, and there was no green thing nor 

 blooming thing for eight miles around, and 

 the thermometer was 110 and 120; yet with- 

 in three weeks there was capped honey in 

 the hives — the famous Hymettus honey. 

 Prof. Jaeger said. Yet never, for all his 

 trampings and searchings, did he see a bee at 

 work. Only thistles were blooming, and no bee 

 paid them the honor of a visit. But round 

 about were mountains, great mountains, 

 some of them 9,000 feet high. Off to the 



1 



Grace Allen 



LJ 



April, 1919 



southeast even 

 storied Olympus 

 was visible. And 

 every afternoon 

 over these peaks 

 the great clouds 

 trailed, bearing 

 their vapors for 

 blessing. High 

 on the mountain 

 sides was refreshment and greenness, and 

 the aroma of wild thyme and flowers crushed 

 underfoot where one walked. Below in the 

 arid valleys, the bees touched not even hon- 

 ey itself left about the yard; but up, ever 

 up and up, they soared; and when the rains 

 finally came in October, behold the queens 

 were honey-bound. Do you wonder we were 

 fascinated with Prof. Jaeger's talk? 



And the wealth of that Balkan region! 

 Coal, oil, iron, quartz, gold, copper, lead, 

 mineral springs, water power, timber — well, 

 if ever a beekeeper mysteriously disappears 

 — find out if he heard Prof. Jaeger at Chi- 

 cago in 1919; if he did, page him in the 

 Balkans. 



But he did not stop there— he carried us, 

 later, in the opening address of the Na- 

 tional, into a state even further removed 

 than the Balkans — a state of high develop- 

 ment in the beekeeping industry — when bee- 

 keeping should be one of the chief branches 

 of agriculture; when, it should have taken 

 such full advantage of the splendid scien- 

 tific assistance so generously given by a 

 learned and patient Bureau of Entomology 

 that it should have developed worthily into 

 a great industry. He called our attention 

 to the cow, which, he asserted, has stepped 

 fjuite out of zoology and become an industry. 

 Entomology, he further asserted, deals with 

 June bugs and cooties and bedbugs, and 

 some 196,000 species, each one as bad as the 

 other — except two, the silkworm and the 

 honeybee. The silkworm has left entomolo- 

 gy and become an industry, while the honey- 

 bee, alas, is still among the cooties! — where 

 it belongs no more than canned beans be- 

 longs in botany or butter in zoology! 



If you have never heard Prof. Jaeger 

 speak, I do most heartily recommend your 

 attendance upon the next gathering where 

 he is to appear. Witty yet earnest, fluent, 

 vigorous, dramatic — he is indeed a most 

 pleasing and convincing speaker. 



Then there was Mr. Kindig — also with a 

 peninsula, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan 

 He told us all about it and its wonders, 

 most enthusiastically. And how 117 nuclei 

 shipped up there in the spring were increas- 

 ed to 204 full colonies, made ready for the 

 winter, and yielded 11,000 pounds. If the 

 adventurous beekeeper who disappears is 

 not to be found in the Balkans, look for him 

 in Mr. Kindig 's Upper Peninsula. Or in- 

 deed, in North Ontario, recommended so 

 enthusiastically by F. W. Krouse. Tons 

 and tons from 300 colonies! I hope these 

 things aren't secrets. If the Editor thinks 



