1891 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



125 



the edge tightly in a vise, with a smooth 

 straight-edged board between the jaws and the 

 paper, and with a sharp draw-knife you can 

 shave the solid paper almost as easily as wood. 

 But remember that I said, a sfuirp draw-knife. 



If you have handy lingers, and follow these 

 directions carefully, I am sure you will turn out 

 a job you will be "proud of; in any event, you 

 will have your favorite Gleanings in a shape 

 to make reading and reference easy. 



A good paste is gum tragacanth. softened in 

 pure water, with a few drops of spirits of cam- 

 phor or carbolic acid added, to keep it from 

 molding. It should have only enough water 

 to thoroughlv soften it. E. J. Baird. 



Orlando, Fla.. Jan. 10. 



[The method you describe is the same as that 

 used by professional book-binders on books 

 bound in paper, with the exception that they 

 employ machinery, and you make use of com- 

 mon simple tools in the possession of most bee- 

 keepers.] 



PLANNING. 



STUDYING OUT PROBLEMS IN BEE CULTURE 



WHILE Yf)U .SHOULD BE LISTENING 



TO THE SERMON. 



I hardly know whether to say that planning 

 is one of the inalienable rights or one of the es- 

 sential requisites of a bee-keeper. I have 

 sometimes thought I should like to have eveiy 

 thing settled, so that I could know just what 

 was best to do in every thing, and have no 

 more studying or planning to do than a team- 

 ster hauling cordwood. But I don't know that 

 I'd be happy then. I"m afraid I'd be planning 

 how to have something else to plan about. 



When do you do the most of j^our planning? 

 I think a great deal, if not the most of the 

 planning of bee-keepers, is done in bed. I 

 judge so from so often liearing them talk about 

 lying awake nights figuring over something, 

 and also from the amount of night planning I 

 have done myself. When is your best time for 

 planning? that is. when do you seem to do the 

 quickest and clearest work at making plans? I 

 don't think I can ans\v(n' that question so well 

 for others: but for myself, to be entirely candid 

 about it, my mind seems to be in the best shape 

 for it when sitting in church trying to listen to 

 a sermon. Please don't understand me as rec- 

 ommending that time for you to do your plan- 

 ning, nor even as saying that I ever deliberately 

 sit and consciously spend my time planning 

 through a whole sermon. Ordinarily I give the 

 sermon my whole attention; and I think my 

 pastor, if asked, would say that I was one of his 

 helpers by keeping my eyes steadily fixed upon 

 him. But suppose some bee-keeping problem 

 has been in my mind for several days. I've 

 been working hard upon it, sometimes "thinking 

 the answer just within reach, then linding my- 

 self overcome by some new difficulty. Satur- 

 day night finds me still working on it: and 

 after going to bed I keep turning it over in my 

 mind until I drop asleep. Perhaps I wake up 

 in the night, and the first thing that comes in 

 ray thoughts is that problem. Just then the 

 question comes, is it before or after 12 o'clock? 

 in other words, is it Saturday or Sunday? If 

 the clock doesn't happen to strike about that 

 time to settle the question. I conclude it's bet- 

 ter for me to go to sleep anyhow — if I can. If I 

 wake in the morning before it is time to rise, up 

 comes that problem: and after making an ef- 

 fort for some time to think of something else I 

 arise in self-defense and take to some good 

 reading. Then I get along perhaps all right 



until I get to church and get settled to listen to 

 the sermon. Directly some word switches my 

 mind off upon a track that leads directly to 

 that problem, and. before I know it, I am chas- 

 ing it up full speed, and am surprised to see 

 how easily I can get over some of the difficul- 

 ties that "before seemed insurmountable. In a 

 minute I recollect myself with " Hold up, 

 there! I thought you were listening to the ser- 

 mon!'' and the re'ply comes, "Well, isn't it too 

 bad not to follow it up when following it up a 

 little further would finish it up, I feel pretty 

 sure, in nice shape?'' But I bring myself up 

 with a round turn, and, with perhaps an occa- 

 sional slip, let the problem alone till Monday 

 morning, when I am likely to find myself in 

 pretty good shape to handle it. 



Now, I have a word of advice for the younger 

 members of the fraternity. You are likely to 

 do a great deal of planning, and more depends 

 on the quality than on the quantity of such 

 work. Don't decide, from what I have said, 

 that Sunday is a better day for planning than 

 any other. It isn't. Why, then, did it seem so 

 in my case? Simply because for a time my 

 mind had been kept free from that kind of 

 work, and was rested. If I should keep to work 

 right on through Sunday, the same result would 

 not follow. The point I wish to make is. that 

 you are not wise to hold your mind too closely 

 to any plan till it is too tired to work well. 

 Many a night I have lain thinking till too tired 

 and drowsy to think very much about any 

 thing, and then, having a sort of feeling that 

 the thing must be settled then and there, have 

 roused myself by a strong effort, only to find 

 tliat I was then simply wakeful, without the 

 power to do any good head work. 



On' the whole. I think you will be the gainer 

 to refuse resolutely to do any sort of planning 

 after you go to bed. Just for the time, you 

 may seem to lose by it, but not in the long run. 

 When you find your mind tired, stop, and go at 

 it some time again. Don't try to be too abstract 

 in your planning. If you are planning to do 

 something with a hive, don't tire yourself try- 

 ing to imagine how such and such things will 

 look when you have placed them so and so. 

 Get the things right before you and it will be 

 easier and better for you. 



Before you do a great deal of planning, read 

 up what has been done by others in the past. 

 Not long ago a beginner showed me a house 

 which he had built for wintering bees, and ask- 

 ed my opinion about it. It was nicely built, 

 costing about STO.OO ; but if he had possessed 

 himself of the books a bee-keeper ought to 

 have, and also the back numbers of the leading 

 bee-journals, he would have seen that he had 

 nothing new or approved. C. C, Miller, 



Marengo. 111., Jan. 17. 



[Well. well, old friend: and is it really true 

 that you are fighting temptation so e.xactly 

 along the same line that I have been for some 

 time past? It has been one of the mysteries to 

 me, why my mind (or, rather, my ""planning 

 machinery") should always start with such 

 tremendous energy just as soon as Sunday 

 morning comes, and especially when the ser- 

 mon commences, I have a great many times 

 noticed that, when older people want to talk, 

 say at the breakfast-table, it is just the time 

 when the little ones, and perhaps the baby who 

 can not talk at all. begin their prattle; and I 

 have seen canary birds that would be as quiet 

 as you wish until somebody commenced conver- 

 sation, then they would almost split their little 

 throats in the effort, as it appeared, to drown 

 the conversation. The business of talking 

 seems to be infectious. Well, in studying the 

 matter ov'er it has occurred to me that thisinvol- 



