426 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



sound, and their attitude is changed from 

 listless irritability to an intense and happy 

 interest in life. 



Now I have spoken something about 

 what a woman can get out of bee-keeping, 

 and I will turn my attention for a moment 

 to those things she does get out of it. I 

 have watched with interest several women 

 who were successful bee-keepers. Once a 

 man said to another, "I have not met with 

 success in my work," and the other answer- 

 ed, "No one ever meets success. If we ever 

 get it we must overtake it." That is what 

 these women have done. They have over- 

 taken success by fair effort, but they did 

 not become breathless meanwhile. Some 

 years they clear a fairly good income, and 

 are very happy over the money earned in a 

 work so interesting and agreeable. This in- 

 come varies from twenty-five to two or three 

 hundred dollars per year, depending upon 

 the season and the size of the apiary. I 

 have never had a personal acquaintance 

 with a woman who was making her living 

 and supporting her family by laee-keeping, 

 all hough I have heard of several who do 

 this. In the case of my acquaintances, 

 bee-keeping is a blessed avocation, and I 

 believe that as such it fulfills its highest 

 benefit to women. 



It is true that in our farming communi- 

 ties the women get too little of the life-giv- 

 ing air of the out-of-doors. The city board- 

 er comes and stays outdoors all day swing- 

 ing in the hammock or taking long tramps 

 over the hills; and she sleeps outdoors at 

 night, if possible. But this proceeding 

 seems hardly decent in the country com- 

 munity where I was born and reared. It 

 seems idle to waste one's days in a ham- 

 mock, and it seems almost scandalous for a 

 woman to be able to walk ten miles. The 

 farmer's wife spends most of her days in- 

 doors, and her nights in a bedroom where 

 drafts are not allowed. (By the way, how 

 much she ought to learn by watching the 

 work of the bees in setting up drafts through 

 the hive with their fanning wings!) It is 

 only because there are some duties which 

 invariably call the women of the farmhouse 

 out of doors that keeps them alive. I have 

 often thought that the unhandy well, four 

 or five yards from the kitchen door, has 

 saved the lives of the women who work in 

 the house. 



Now, bee-keeping gives the women of the 

 farm home a reason for being out of doors, 

 and at just the season when the world is 

 most beautiful. Moreover, the apiary is al- 

 ways in a pleasant place. One thing which 

 always holds my attention is that, however 

 unattractive the surroundings of the farm- 

 house, the bees have a pleasant corner in 

 the orchard, or in some other partly sunny 

 spot. Whether they know it or not, the 

 women of the farm home who care for the 

 bees get some good air and some good 

 healthy outdoor labor, and meanwhile they 

 are not troubled vith insomnia. How many 

 a country wife has wondered and resented 

 during lier sleepless hours the sound and 



perfect sleep of her husband when the only 

 reason for this difference lay in the fact that 

 his work was in the open air and hers in the 

 stuffy house. 



Then there is another and even more fun- 

 damental reason for bee-keeping as a wo- 

 man's interest. I would prescribe as a 

 means for preserving sanity and sound 

 nerves to the wives and mothers of this 

 country that they each have some avoca- 

 tion which may be pursued steadfastly, 

 even though interruptedly, and that it 

 should be quite apart from household du- 

 ties. Such a work clears the mind and 

 temper of tangles. It is like the shadow of 

 a rock in a weary land. Half the worries of 

 life crawl away out of sight the moment we 

 really drop them; and often, if we find them 

 again, the^y seem to have shrunken. There 

 is something nerve- exhausting about tlie 

 daily treadmill of household drudgery. It 

 always wears on the same nerves; the col- 

 lar of the housework harness always chafes 

 on the same sore spot. An avocation gives 

 a chance to throw off tlae collar and give the 

 collar-galls a chance to cool and heal; and 

 bee-keeping is one of the sanest, sweetest, 

 and easiest of these nerve-healing avoca- 

 tions. It is worse than useless for a woman 

 to carry the irritation engendered in the hot 

 kitchen into the apiary, for no living crea- 

 ture is more sensitive to an irritable frame 

 of mind than is the bee; and her way of 

 showing her consciousness of it surely makes 

 the punishment fit the crime. A bee can 

 not be scolded, spanked, nor kicked. The 

 only way to deal with her is to keep the spir- 

 it calm and peaceful, the temper self-con- 

 trolled and equable; and thus it is that the 

 mere work with bees becomes a means of 

 grace. 



And, finally, in my judgment, it is bee- 

 keeiiing as an avocation that is, after all, the 

 most important reason why there should be 

 women bee-keei)ers. The honey and the 

 money they gain from it are simply useful 

 and welcome incidentals gained while they 

 are laying up health and strength, and cul- 

 tivating a new interest in life, and gaining 

 in perception and love for God's wonderful 

 world. 



BEE-KEEPING IN FLORIDA. 



Some Representative Bee-men of Florida. 



E. G. BALDWIN. 



Continued fi-om last issue. 



All along the western coast of Florida, be- 

 low Tampa, a chain of keys encloses a series 

 of broad bays wherein flows the salt water 

 of the sea, quiet an:l serene, secure from the 

 winds and waves that often lash the great 

 gulf just beyond the keys. Most beautiful 

 for location on one of these keys is the home 

 of Mr. Isaac T. Shumard, of Osprey. His 

 home is on Cassey's Key, one of the longest 

 in all that region. He is 82 miles below 



