Mav, 1919 



(CLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



SOS 



c 



ur 



EVEN as Feb- 

 ruary was a 

 good - luck 

 month in per- 

 mitting my at- 

 tendance on the 

 National C o n - 

 vention at Chi- 

 cago, so early 

 March gave me 



the gift of a visit to Medina before return- 

 ing home. And things which had been to 

 me but pictures became real factories, mak- 

 ing liives and extractors and foundation, 

 real apiaries with their familiar grapevines 

 and evergreens, real offices, humming with 

 activity. And people who had been to me 

 but names became real people — people of 

 friendly ways and cordial courtesies and 

 generous hospitalities. So, tho I failed ut- 

 terly to ask the Editor the things I meant 

 to ask or to discuss the things I had plan- 

 ned to discuss, it was a most pleasant visit, 

 and left me indebted to all ' ' Rootville ' ' for 

 a sheaf of charming memories. Will you 

 not come to Nashville some day, you whom 

 I met at that time, that by our welcome we 

 may partially indicate our deep appreciation 

 of your courtesies to me when I visited Me- 

 dina ? 



A great deal of the trip was by night, but 

 fortunately coming back I crossed Kentucky 

 by day. And loved every minute of it. 

 Indeed, just because I thrilled to it so my- 

 self it really distressed me to see my fellow 

 passengers lounging back in their chairs, 

 reading baseball and pugilism, politics, and 

 photo play journals, while the folded hills 

 went by — all the gracious panorama of Ken- 

 tucky and Tennessee. Bare woods were car- 

 peted with leaves of other years, lovely val- 

 leys dipped gently down to friendly little 

 rills, long bluegrass stretches lay open to the 

 sun, great rocks showed their ledges where 

 the hills were cut. And the colors — queer, 

 soft, rich browns and grays with reddish 

 hints and bluish tints and the green of 

 cedars and spruce and young tender wheat. 

 Then came Mr. Allen, boarding the train an 

 hour or more out of Nashville — and home — 

 ami daffodils blooming in the corner of the 

 yard. Wasn't it a wonderful trip indeed? 

 * * * 



This is the first March I have ever failed 

 to examine our bees. Tho daffodils were 

 here to greet me on my return from the 

 North, March 9th, it was still too cold to 

 open the hives, and in a very few days some- 

 thing akin to influenza had touched me on 

 the shoulder and frowned "You, too" at 

 me. Thus I lost most of the rest of the 

 month. 



Peach and plum and pear were in full 

 bloom — yes, had passed their peak— when 

 Mr. Allen and I went out to the yard on the 

 last Saturday in March, for a first general 

 look. Every hive was humming merrily, 

 pollen- or nectar-laden bees were rushing 

 into every entrance, and every colony, from 

 this outside view, seemed prosperous and in 



Beekeeping as a Side Line 



1 



Grace Allen 



^^^^^^^^^=^ 



%J 



good condition. 

 Except two. One 

 of these had an 

 abnormal n u m - 

 V)er of dying and 

 recently dead 

 bees in front of 

 the entrance; 

 the other had a 

 great heap of 

 debris — particles of destroyed comb. The 

 first one, being in the quadruple packing 

 case, we could not get to without spending 

 more time and effort than we were prepared 

 to do that afternoon. At this writing it has 

 not yet been opened. It is interesting that 

 the other three entrances to this packing 

 case showed almost no dead bees at all. 



The other hive that showed something 

 wrong had wintered in a story-and-a-half 

 single-walled hive, with the entrance wide 

 open. This hive we opened at once to ac- 

 count for the pile of debris in front. We 

 accounted all right. Mice. There was not 

 a whole shallow comb left, each one being 

 largely destroyed. Nor was there a cell of hon- 

 ey left in the super. Three full-depth combs 

 were also partly destroyed. Yet against 

 this disaster the bees were still bravely 

 working, and there was brood in four or 

 five combs, some of it sealed. 



This is the first time we have ever been 

 troubled with mice, and I suppose the wide 

 entrance is responsible. There were six oth- 

 er hives in that yard with entrances not con- 

 tracted, but there were no outer indications 

 of trouble in any of the others. 



How did we know for sure that it was 

 mice? The stiff and dried remains of one 

 was still in the hive. 



* » » 



How trying spring conditions can be! 

 How warm and sunny and blossomy the days 

 and how cold and frosty the nights. We are 

 just coming out from a particularly cold 

 spell here, for this season, when the morn- 

 ings showed ice on water in chicken yards 

 and left us wondering about the effect on 

 the heavy bloom of the peach trees and the 

 brood in the beehives. Today I find chilled 

 brood at the entrances of several colonies 

 here at home. 



Mr. Allen just telephoned to say it is 

 warming up nicely again and would I 

 please take the cover off his diminutive hot- 

 bed. Having done so and finding it really 

 pleasant outdoors, I have brought writing 

 material out here by the bees in the sun. 

 And I want to tell you about this side-line 

 hotbed of Mr. Allen's. He made it a year 

 or so ago, just the size of our solar wax-ex- 

 tractor, and uses the glass cover from the 

 extractor to protect his aspiring young to- 

 mato and lettuce plants. It really works 

 nicely, and later the cover goes back into 

 the service for which it was made. I was 

 interested just now to notice a solid line of 

 bees along one edge where the glass met the 

 rim, and I wondered whether they were 

 there because of some odor of honey and 



