262 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



August 



f erring bees into a good hive. There 

 was much interest in this operation 

 on the part of the novice and skilled 

 beekeeper alike. Fortunately, by 

 this time, it had stopped raining and 

 the movie man was able to operate 

 his machine w-liile the work was in 

 progress. 



Big baskets of lunch were brought 

 out at the noon hour and the contents 

 quickly disposed of. There was too 

 much to be done to permit the waste 

 of much time, and the crowd was of! 

 to the next stop. .\n interesting inci- 

 dent of the first day was the cutting 

 of a bee tree. It was a big sugar ma- 

 ple and the bees were entering at a 

 hollow limb aboiit 30 feet above 

 ground. Men with a.xes. and later 

 with a cross-cut saw made quick 

 work of felling it. Even the reporter 

 lady gave a hand at the saw. When 

 it was down, a section was cut out 

 and that part occupied by the bees 

 was split open. Although th" colony 

 was not large, it was transferred to a 

 hive in the approved manner. Here 

 again the movie man was kept busy, 

 even showing the falling of the big 

 tree. 



At one well-kept farm, a big lot of 

 good equipment w.t= found and many 

 hives filled with combs, but few bees. 

 The old gentleman who owned them 

 had died, and .American foulbrood 

 made short work of the neglected 

 bees. Here the inspectors made a 

 big bonfire, burning the moth-eaten 

 combs and inside textures, while disin- 

 fecting the hives and such equipment 



The reporter lady gives a hand at cutting the tree. 



as could safely be saved. It was a 

 splendid object lesson on the effect 

 of disease in the apiary. 



Beekeepers visited, who had had 

 only box hives last year, had every- 

 thing in spick and span order this 

 year, with bees in new hives, nicely 

 painted, and in good show condition. 

 One visit, from a crowd like that, is 



1 ransferring the bees from \\\r tree to the hive 



s.ifficirnt to start a fellow to keeping 

 bees righr or to get out of the busi- 

 ness. Only one man on the whole 

 trip failed to oiTer a cordial welcome. 

 This fellow swore that the whole 

 crowd was a bunch of crooks, and 

 that he had sold all his bees after 

 last year's visit, just to get rid of 

 them. When asked for an explana- 

 tion of the trouble v>'hich his bees had 

 manifested last year, he said there 

 iiad been a big fight among the 

 drones, which so reduced the bees 

 tliat they had not done any good. 



Some whose bees were not in good 

 condition joined the crowd and went 

 out to see both well-kept bees and 

 neglected bees,vuntil they were able 

 to see exactly how they should be 

 kept. A delightful hour was spent at 

 St. Mary's of the Woods. Here a 

 good-sized apiary in charge of a 

 Sister past 70 years of age, was found 

 to be in model order. It was an ex- 

 cellent chance to impress upon the 

 novice how bees should be kept. A 

 large poi;ltry farm, at the same in- 

 stitution, attracted much interest on 

 the part of the visitors. 



All told, it was a very successful oc- 

 casion. Not only did it furnish an op- 

 portunity for the members of the as- 

 sociation to get together for a.n out- 

 ing and talkfest, but it had a most 

 wholesome effect upon 'he class of 

 l)cekeepers who are hardest to i each 

 — those who, having a few bees, do 

 not take much interest in them. In 

 some cases, it was very plain that the 

 owners of ill-kejit apiaries did not en- 

 joy the visit of such a crowd, n(jr 

 did they exactly relish the comments 

 on the way things were kept. In one 

 apiary, the bees were found with only 

 •)ne super on each hive, jammed full 

 ;ii nearly every case from tulip pop- 

 lar, and the bees loafing for lack of 

 room to store the incoming honey 

 from clover. The owner would not 

 admit that it would have paid him 

 to put on more supers, as he had 

 kept bees for forty years with only 



