NOVKMBER, lOl? 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



R 



C 



E C ENTLY 

 a e e r t ain 



T e n iiessee 

 sideliner bought 

 some more bees 

 — twenty colo- 

 nies. He had 

 planned to take 

 his negro man 



with him to get them, but said negro man 

 was temporarily laid up with an accident 

 to his foot. So Mrs. Sideliner was ap- 

 pealed to. Now this particular Mrs. Side- 

 liner is an energetic little lady, so she 

 promptly decided to bake the trip for 

 the experience and the fun. Two mules 

 were hitched to a wagon, and they started 

 on their trip — a distance of about fifteen 

 miles. The first part of the way the roads- 

 were good ; but thruout the latter portion 

 of the journey they had many ups and 

 downs. There, for much of the way, the 

 road followed the bed of a creek. You 

 know how such a creek road goes — the 

 pebbly and too often rocky creek bed is 

 followed all too faithfully, except when 

 it goes winding off in too long a curve; 

 then the road gets independent and goes 

 its own more dii'ect way until the Avayward 

 creek winds back again, when again they 

 emerge. Bumpity-bump, bumpity-bump, 

 over the rough way they went, and it was 

 late and dark when they finally reached 

 the home where the beekeeper lived who 

 had been drafted and wanted to sell his 

 bees. 



Thru some misunderstanding, this man 

 had thought they were coming in the morn- 

 ing, and so had had the wire cloth over 

 the entrances all day. Two of the strong- 

 est colonies, crowding their enti^anees, had 

 generated enough heat to melt down tlie 

 combs, and had perished. Loading up the 

 reinaining eighteen, they started back at 

 about the hour they had expected to get 

 home. 



It was so dark, and the road so difficult, 

 tliat Mrs. Sideliner with a lantern in each 

 hand walked ahead to find the way. Slow- 

 ly but surely they covered about a mile, 

 when suddenly lurch, smash — off came a 

 wheel! And slipping, sliding, tumbling — 

 off" came the hives! likewise Mr. Sideliner. 

 Fortunately he was unhurt. Fortunately, 

 too, the excitable mules behaved like gentle- 

 men and oflicers, and there was no panic. 

 But, you see, there they were — right there. 

 Yet they couldn't very well stay' there. 

 Neither could they possibly go on home. 

 So they conducted a reti'eat, purely strat- 

 egic, of course. Unhitching the mules they 

 left the hives and broken wagon and start- 



Beekeeping as a Side Line 



LJ 



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851 



c<] back to the 

 place wliere they 

 had bought the 

 bees. 



A wagon-trail 

 that follows a 

 « lei'k bed is bad 

 to ride, but 

 Avorse to walk; 

 bnf tliey circled around thru the dark and 

 the dewy weeds, and at last filed, infantry 

 and horse, as it were into the yard of flie 

 astonished man whom they had left a cou]ile 

 of hours before. Here the mules and the 

 lady put up for the night. But Mr. Side- 

 liner went back with his lantern to guard 

 his new bees; for, in the tip-up, combs had 

 smashed, two or three colonies were destroy- 

 ed, and honey was running out on the 

 ground. Almost as soon as he got back to 

 the dismal scene, some hogs found it, and 

 off and on all night he had to drive off those 

 un-Hooverian hogs. A little fire in the lee 

 of the wagon helped make the chilly niglit 

 comfortable. 



As the dawn finally broke, a near-by 

 farmhouse gradually showed out of the 

 darkness, and soon a man appeared, busy 

 about his chores. Suddenly he seemed to 

 discover the patient beekeeper there by the 

 side of the road, keeping watch over his 

 bees and his smashed-up wagon. He turn- 

 ed to the house. " Put on some more 

 coffee!" he shouted up to his wife and 

 strode out to gi'eet the stranger. Over all 

 the other's protests, he insisted on his 

 coming in for breakfast. 



Cheered and warmed by the hot strong 

 coffee and the food and the friendliness, the 

 beeman at last got his wagon repaired and 

 his party reassembled; and in due time 

 they reached home with fifteen hives of 

 bees to add to their apiary, and an inter- 

 esting experience to store away in their 

 memories. 



But how about that method of making 

 increase ? 



AN ENTHUSIASTIC SIDELINER. 



One of the most enthusiastic of sideliners 

 is Mr. G. B. Mays, of Champaign, Illinois, 

 to whom we liave referred once before in 

 this department. Being a conductor on a 

 railroad, Mr. Mays must realize the value 

 of tlie many branch lines that go running 

 off from the main line, hauling in freight 

 and passengers and profits that tlie main 

 line could never gather of itself. In quite 

 the same fashion, out into the gi-eat terri- 

 tory of life's limitless opportunity go all 

 our little side lines, and they bring us in 

 a wealth of experience and pleasure, and 



