Dkck.muek, 1919 



G L !•: A N I N Ci S T N R K K C I' I. T U R K 



781 



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REFLECTIONS OF A BACKLOTTER 



If You Want to be a Beekeeper of Good Standing 

 Try all the New Things 



Thoio are so many interesting things 

 about the bee business that I must aslv your 

 pardon for doing all the talking, but I simply 

 must give you the benefit of my experience. 

 I should be quite willing to step aside and 

 give some of the rest of you a chance; but, 

 as T told you at the last club meeting, I have 

 the right of way because I can do more talk- 

 ing than the rest of you. That's why you 

 made me president. This is my monthly 

 presidential address. 



I've always made a good deal of fun of 

 Friend Wife for her desire to be in style. 

 It doesn 't hurt my feelings any if I have 

 to wear a suit of clothes three years if it is 

 fairly decent and if the holes are not too 

 big. But Wife must have a new suit every 

 year and a lot of other things, just because 

 it is the style. I 'm convinced that this 

 slavery to style is all wrong in women, but 

 I'm not going to try to reform that con- 

 dition. What I 'm going to tell you fellows 

 about this evening is about the styles in 

 beekeeping. It is certain that you can 't be 

 a good beekeeper unless you are wearing the 

 1919 model, as it were; that is, doing the 

 thing which is the last word. 



You fellows who have been in the busi- 

 ness only a little while may not know about 

 this style business. But as I told you be- 

 fore I have decided to become a regular 

 fellow in the bee business and I 've been 

 reading all the back bee journals that I can 

 find. So I'm going to tell you what I've 

 found about this and that will save you a 

 lot of reading. I may as well tell you that 

 if you are to be beekeepers in good and 

 regular standing you must try everything 

 that is advocated and drop what you have 

 been doing, for I am sure that you want to 

 do the right thing. 



You know, of course, that Mr. Langstroth 

 invented the movable-frame hive in the fif- 

 ties. Well, after he made us a good hive 

 for comb honey we went along for a time all 

 I'ight, but pretty soon the fraternity was or- 

 ganized. Now, as I am going to tell you 

 this evening, the constitution of the frater- 

 nity requires that the styles in beekeeping 

 shall be changed frequently. 



At first most of the changes were in hives. 

 The hive was then considered the most im- 

 jjortant thing in beekeeping, consequently 

 that was the place to change all the time. 

 Now we know that the hive doesn 't make 

 much difference after all, so we have all 

 about agreed to let it alone and to make 

 the changes in things that really cut more 

 figure. Maybe you don't see the logic of 

 that, but after you have been in the busi- 



ness as long as I have and have studied up 

 on the history you will, I am sure, agree 

 with me. 



First of all, the style changed so that all 

 hives were to be made one board thick. 

 That style reminds me a good deal of the 

 skirts that the women are wearing now. 

 I've often thought that the women get 

 chilly at times, and I suppose the bees do 

 too. But the bees are game sports and do 

 not object as long as their owner plays the 

 game according to the rules. 



Then we ran up against a law of Nature 

 that made a quick change in the styles nec- 

 essary really before it was time to make a 

 regular change. The bees simply could not 

 do well in a hive like that. The style had 

 been set without consulting the bees. As I 

 said the bees did not complain, for they are 

 in this to the end; but the less husky colo- 

 nies died in spite of their good intentions, 

 and all the rest were so weak in the spring 

 that something had to be done about it. 

 There were one or two beekeepers who 

 thought that we would have to go back to 

 the packed hives but they were soon ruled 

 out. You might as well try to get women to 

 go back to the styles of year before last as 

 to try a game like that among beekeepers. 

 So the fraternity in convention assembled 

 decided on a smaller hive. If the bees were 

 made so weak that they could not fill a man- 

 sized hive, then of course the thing to do 

 was to make a toy hive. We did. First we 

 had the eight-frame hive for a time, and we 

 got on fairly well with that. Of course, the 

 crop was reduced, but what is a crop to a 

 beekeeper who is a regular fellow? 



The next thing was a shallow hive, and 

 this idea hit hard. Us for the shallow hive. 

 The bees could not fill the eight-frame hive 

 so as to get a good crop of comb honey. 

 Consequently we made a lot of hives, about 

 one a year, that would not allow the bees 

 any space for honey in the brood-frames; 

 so there was nothing for it but that the bees 

 put what little they got in the supers. 



That got us into no end of trouble, for of 

 course the bees died like rats in winter be- 

 cause of lack of stores. But where there's a 

 will there 's a way, and stimulative feeding 

 in the scaring cam© to the front. That saved 

 a lot of the bees but still they died. The 

 winter losses were about 25 per cent every 

 year and all sorts of plans were proposed to 

 arrange that little detail. 



I remember reading an account of one 

 convention where an old fogy insisted that 

 the only thing to do was to put the bees 

 in a full-sized hive and pack them heavily 

 in winter. He insisted that spring feeding 

 is bad and that it is impossible to get a full 

 crop unless we have big colonies. He even 

 went so far as to quote Father Langstroth 

 in his advice to keep all colonies strong, but 



