JANUARY 1, 1916 



35 



Heads of Grain From Different Fields 



The Backlot Buzzer 



The amateur who bought a hive of blacks last year 

 to stvdy their habits has learned more than he fig- 

 ured on. Anyway, he says he's mighty glad winter 

 is here. They are all in the hive, and ivon't be out 

 till spring. 



Here's Orthodox Bee-story 



Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, prominent writer of 

 fiction, must have been a beekeeper. In his serial 

 story, " Uneasy Money," now running in the Satin- 

 day Evening Post, he introduces Elizabeth Boyd, the 

 heroine of the plot, as a beekeeper; and in the in- 

 stallment for Dec. 18 it turns out that Lord Daw- 

 lish, alias Mr. Chalmers, also at one time worked 

 with bees. 



The high-spirited Miss Boyd, resenting Chalmers' 

 presence on her farm, plans to trap the young man 

 in the apiary and get the bees to sting him badly. 

 Part of the dialog follows. 



" Elizabeth's irritation became painful. She re- 

 sented his smile. She hung the smoker on the side 

 of the hive. 



" ' The stool, please, and the screwdriver.' 



" She seated herself beside the hive and began to 

 loosen the outside section. Then taking the brood- 

 frame by the projecting end-s she pulled it out and 

 lianded it to her companion. She did it as one who 

 plays an ace of trumps. 



" 'Would you mind holding this, Mr. Chalmers? ' 



" The surface of the frame was black with what 

 appeared at first sight to be a thick bubbling fluid 

 of some sort, pouring viscously to and fro as if some 

 hidden fire had been lighted beneath it. Only after 

 a closer inspection was it apparent to the lay eye 

 that this seeming fluid was in reality composed of 

 mass upon mass of bees. They shoved and writhed 

 and muttered and jostled, for all the world like a 

 collection of home-seeking New Yorkers trying to 



secure standing room on a subway express at half- 

 past five in the afternoon." 



She gets him to shake the bees. 



" Lord Dawlish watched them go with a kindly 

 interest. 



" ' It has always been a mystery to me,' he said. 

 ' why they never seem to think of manhandling the 

 Johnny who does that to them. They don't seem 

 able to connect cause and efifect. I suppose the only 

 way they can figure it out is that the bottom has 

 suddenly di'opped out of everything, and they are 

 so busy lighting out for home that they haven't time 

 to go to the root of things. But it's a ticklish job 

 for all that, if you're not used to it. I know when 

 I first did it I shut my eyes and wondered whether 

 they would bury my remains or cremate them.' 



"'When you first did it?' Elizabeth was star- 

 ing at him blankly. ' Have you done it before ? ' 



Her voice shook. Bill met her gaze frankly. 



" ' Done it before? Rather! Thousands of times. 

 You see, I spent a year on a bee-farm once, learn- 

 ing the business.' " 



Simmins Starvation Introduction Successful 



Replying to Mr. A. T. Rodman's article on page 

 896, Nov. 1, I wish to say that this plan of intro- 

 ducing is the old Simmins method, described in the 

 ABC and X Y Z of Bee Culture. 



I too had a great many failures in introducing 

 this year. The cage plan was a failure, as was also 

 the smoke method. Knowing of the Simmins meth- 

 od I decided to try it, and -did, with great results. 

 Mr. Rodman tells us in his article to be sure to 

 introduce the queen after dark; but I killed old 

 queens at noon and introduced by this' method thirty 

 minutes later. A flow of nectar was on from the 

 aster, and this may account for my good luck. All 

 of those introduced at noon were accepted. 



Altho this is a good method for introducing, like 

 all others we shall have some failures at times. I 

 liave never found a method that was infallible, and 

 wish that I could. Better results were obtained this 

 year with the Simmins method than by either cage 

 or smoke method. 



Morgan, Ky. J. E. Jordan. 



Wintering in Texas, and Other Observations 



When one reads so much about packing bees away 

 for their winter nap it makes him smile to think he 

 is not to be troubled that way down in Texas, where 

 the bees fly very nearly every day in the year. Of 

 course we have a day or two now and then when 

 our bees have to stay in. I winter on the same 

 stand from year to year. 



I might say my bees are the very best three-band- 

 ed Italians, the only kind of use for honey produc- 

 tion in this section of countrv. Swarms? Yes, I 

 think I had a swarm or so once while I was sick 

 and could not give them proper attention. 



My surplus is from horsemint and clover, al- 

 though there are quite a number of other sources 

 from which our bees draw. I raise my own queens, 

 and think I get better results than trusting to let 

 tlie liees take their own will about their mother. 



There are very few bees about my yard, and it is 

 a show to lots of folks to see the hive opened up and 

 have the queen pointed out to them. A large ma- 

 jority want then to see the " king bee." 



I use the standard eight-frame hive, and run 

 them for chunk and extracted honey, and always 

 liave more orders than honey ; yet I get a good sur- 

 plus. 



Nacogdoches, Texas. W. S. Chadvcick. 



