138 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



February, 1917 



Head's of GRAi?ri I?poMlQ rD^^^^^ fields 



A Song of the Suburbs 



BY (iRACE ALLEN 



Here where the near low curve of the country 



Eeaehes the city 's most rambling edge, 

 Here where the long hard lines of the pave- 

 ment 

 Are lost in a tangle of wayside hedge, 

 Here where the clear-eyed air shakes his 

 garment 

 Free from the soil of the toiling smokes, — 

 Here stand our homes, where a field-rim 

 circles 

 Tlie worn-out ends of the long street-spokes. 



Here we have builded our neighborly houses, 



Half in the country, half in the town; 

 Here we have greeted our neighborly neigh- 

 bors 

 Over the fence as the sun went down. 

 Here we have planted our lawns and our 

 lilac. 

 And smiled undismayed when the lawns 

 wore bare. 

 For here are the faces of play-flushed chil- 

 dren 

 Fairer than even green grass is fair. 



Here when the morning is born in the still- 

 ness 

 Faintly comes floating the crowing of 

 cocks; 

 Here in the springtime we cherish our gar- 

 dens, 

 While faithful old motherhens hover their 

 flocks; 

 Here when the summer shines over the clover 



Swiftly our bees flash away thru the sun. 

 And here, while we thrill to their magical 

 humming. 

 We share in the wealth so exultantly won. 



What tho no luxury graces our living? 



We 've laughter and roses and hives under 

 trees! 

 What tho we labor from dawn till the dark- 

 ness. 

 Eager, devoted, content — like our bees? 

 Life, in the fullness and glow of his vigor, 



Is walking our every unpaved street, 

 And skies like the eyes of the Love that is 

 Heaven 

 Shine where the town and the country meet. 



Pollen in Our market prefers 



Shallow-Frame . bulk or chunk honey. 



Honey We dislike to cut the 



honey out of sections 

 for this trade, and have been producing it in 

 the shallow extracting-frames; but the bees 

 delight in storing pollen in these nicely drawn 

 combs. We place our extracting-frames on, 

 following the clover flow in order to get the 

 foundation drawn out and catch what little 



honey there is from mid-season flowers, 

 such as sweet clover and heartease. Eag- 

 weed blooms profusely about this time, and 

 produces an abundance of pollen which the 

 bees store in these frames and afterward 

 finish up by storing goldenrod and bluevine 

 honey on top of this ragweed pollen. If we 

 keep the supers off till the fall flow comes 

 on, it induces swarming. Can anybody sug- 

 gest a remedy? We never have any trouble 

 with this ragweed pollen going into sections 

 —why? 



The Indiana Beekeepers' Association 

 should get busy this winter, and go after our 

 law-makers to give us more inspectors. The 

 state entomologist 's oflice is badly handicap- 

 ped for want of funds to protect this very 

 important industry in our state. We are en- 

 titled to more recognition - — ■ let 's have it. 

 The State Horticultural Society and the 

 dairy and stock industry are well taken care 

 of, but we beekeepers are left out in the 

 cold. Whose fault is it? We are not go- 

 ing to get the needed protection unless we 

 go after it. There are 500 colonies of bees 

 within a radius of five miles of my place, 

 and foul brood rampant; yet we never have 

 had a clean-up. It's discouraging, but I 

 have hopes. S. H. Burton. 



Washington, Indiana, Dec. 16. 



Quality of In the fall of 1915 a 



Stores or Lack large stone wall north 



of Protection of my bees was remov- 



e d. My protection 

 gone, I moved the ten colonies to lower 

 ground and made the little shelter I had time 

 for. On the east was a low hill, but that 

 was about all. The bees were in hives of 

 the A. C. Miller plan with frames parallel 

 to the entrance, half-inch super-cover on 

 the hives, a super of dry leaves over it, and 

 with deep tar-papered telescoping covers 

 over all. The entrances were % by 3 inch. 



The apiary is on low land 100 yards from 

 Palmer's River. Twice in the spring the 

 water has almost reached the apiary. Our 

 thermometer in the morning is 2 degrees 

 lower than at neighboring farms; and to go 

 in any direction one can readily see the 

 difference of air on a cold morning. 



Well, with 20 to 30 lbs. of stores I lost no 

 sleep worrying about the bees; but in Janu- 

 ary we had ten days of mild weather which, 

 no doubt, induced breeding. Then in Febru- 

 ary and March we had zero weather follow- 

 ed by a cold and wet spring. The colonies 

 dwindled fast; and by uniting I had, on 

 April 1, just one colony. There were two 

 or three frames of dead bees in a hive, very 

 odorous, with two or three frames of honey. 

 Should I have extracted the stores and fed 

 sugar ? 



Last year we had much clover. I bought 



