1116 



have no time to read anyway. We usually 

 find the hives among weeds so tall that the 

 poor bees have to crawl three feet to the 

 top of them in order to see daylight. And 

 such bees! They meet us on the far side 

 of a ten-acre lot with a welcome that re- 

 minds us somewhat of the disposition of 

 the booze gang the next morning after a 

 dry election. Pure Italians — whew ! The 

 hives were made in a factory all right, but 

 the combs are so crisscross that not a single 

 one can be removed without cutting it or 

 splitting open the hive with an ax. These 

 conditions are far worse than in any plain 

 box hive. Hives with immovable combs, 

 vv'hether factory-made or home-made, must 

 necessarily jDut its owner in the box-hive 

 class. 



3, There is also a class of beekeepers who 

 are discouraged because their bees are not 

 doing well, and who do not care to do any- 

 thing about it because the bees don't mean 

 anything to them. Fortunately such peo- 

 ple do not stay in the business long. If 

 their bets do not soon die they are sold 

 cheaply, or given to some one who does care. 



4. Fortunately, also this class is small. 

 I refer to the beekeeper who is a sort of 

 combination of the three other classes with 

 some things added. He knows that he is 

 behind the times, and a menace to good bee- 

 kecjiing, and yet he takes a grim satisfac- 

 tion in the knowledge. He knows that he is 

 getting practically nothing out of his bees, 

 but he wants no instructions as to how he 

 may do better. He is suspicious if not 

 openly defiant toward the inspector, and 

 sullenly wants to be let alone. He wants 

 no one, not even the state, to presume upon 

 what he calls Ms rights, and yet he seems to 

 have no realization of the menace that he 

 may be to the general good of apiculture 

 nor his obligation thereto. 



Some prosperous, up-to-date, and wide- 

 awake beekeepers advise us to steer clear of 

 the box-liive man with his slipshod methods. 

 They admit that the worst enemy to the hon- 

 eybee and to good beekeeping is the box-hive 

 beekeeper ; but they say that foul brood is a 

 blessing to the one who knows how to handle 

 it, because it soon cleans out the other fel- 

 low, once it gets into a community. But is 

 that strictly true? Do the facts bear that 

 statement out? And even if it were so, is 

 that the proper attitude for us to bear 

 toward our fellows? As a matter of fact 

 we usually find that a scourge of foul brood 

 hits the specialist so hard that lie might well 

 alford to get out among his neighbors and 

 do considerable educational work in order 

 to save himself much loss and expense. 



It has been said that if we encourage the 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



small beekeeper we shall soon overstock our 

 territory as well as cause an overproduction 

 of honey. Last summer one fellow threw 

 up his hands in dismay and said to me, 

 " What are we going to do with all the 

 lioney when you fellows get all these farmer 

 beekeepers educated to modern methods?" 

 Well, if it were possible to accomplish such 

 glorious results it would take so long that 

 we would be listening to Gabriel's trumpet, 

 and the honey market would eollapse with 

 a crash anyway. 



With probably not over one per cent of 

 the people of this country eating honey, the 

 idea that there is a possibility of producing 

 too much honey has no good ground for 

 fact. If all the honey now produced were 

 properly distributed there would hardly be 

 a taste for each one. 



The man who can deliberately say, "Let 

 my neighbors' bees die with foul brood and 

 by adverse conditions, I shall be the gainer 

 thereby," must be a selfish man indeed. 

 Sucli selfishness, if put into action in bee- 

 keeping or any other phase of life, is sure 

 to act as a deadly boomerang against the 

 individual who is dominated by such mo- 

 tives. What if all the farmers, fruit-gTow- 

 ers, dairymen, manufacturers — all the busi- 

 ness men in all walks of life — manifested 

 such a spirit. We may irhagine the result, 

 but we cannot take space to discuss it now. 

 That is the spirit that destroys men as well 

 as business. 



Let us now look on the bright side of this 

 problem. My neighbor — ^a farmer — keeps 

 a few bees. I show him how to transfer 

 them, how to fight foul brood, and get him 

 interested in some good bee literature. I do 

 not refuse, either, to answer his questions 

 nor to give him help when he asks for it, 

 even tho it may take my time and sometimes 

 tax my patience. The next thing I know 

 he is interested in planting honey-producing 

 forage plants — a boomerang of the right 

 kind this time. Perhaps that is selfishness 

 too ; birt if it is, it works good to my neigh- 

 bor as well as to myself, and it is worth 

 more than gold to me to have my neighbor 

 meet me with a smile. Men who used to be 

 prejudiced against alsike clover because they 

 saicl it did not produce enough hay to pay 

 now soAv lots of it because they get some 

 help and encouragement with their bees. 

 That makes those locations much better for 

 beekeeping, and really in a most direct man- 

 ner it has made those men better farmers 

 than they were. I get more honey from my 

 neighbors' alsike fields than they do, and a 

 good many barrels of satisfaction and fun 

 out of it besides. 



Only a few days ago one of my adjoining 



