Mabch, 1920 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



149 



FROM THE FIELD OF EXPERIENCE 



share of the sweet stuff. Just to look at it 

 made my mouth water, and since honey is 

 not one of the regular army rations I was 

 naturally tempted to taste just a little. So 

 I broke off a small piece of the hone^y. And 

 talk about "Job's nectar"! Why, man, it 

 didn't have a thing on this honey! The 

 bees then began to realize that their com- 



Pig:. 2. — Soldiers eatin? bread and honey on stone 

 wall at St. Mars de Loquenay, France. 



pany was getting a little too fresh^ so I 

 was forced to make a hasty retreat. 



Later in the fall, after Fritz had "holler- 

 ed enough, ' ' our division was stationed at 

 the little village of Chonville, 20 kilometers 

 south of St. Mihiel. Here I found several 

 hives of the old box-hive type, as shown in 

 Fig. 1. I thought with these bees around 

 there would surely be some honey in town; 

 so I went to every grocery store in the vil- 

 lage and at last I succeeded in finding some. 

 Luckily I tasted it before paying out my 

 hard-earned francs. It was the most sick- 

 ening stuff I ever tasted. However, I was 

 not to be discouraged, for my longing for 

 honey must be satiated. So the first op- 

 portunity I had I went over to Commercy, 



Fip. 3. — French family in their apiary. Note straw 



protprtion of hive at left of the man, and the hive 



insulated with cow manure at left of boy. 



about a five-mile hike, and finally succeeded 

 in getting a small can of about a quarter- 

 pint capacity. It was a very attractive 

 package, and I shelled out the equivalent of 

 eighty cents. The old adage, "Fine feathers 



don't always make fine birds," was truly 

 applicable in this case; for the neat, attrac- 

 tive package contained a black, strong, sick- 

 ening-smelling honey. To cap the climax 

 there was a piece of corn husk in the center 

 of it. As to what this was doing in there 

 I cannot say, but I imagine it was just some 

 of the trash that hadn't been strained out. 

 I was surely disappointed with all French 

 honey. 



After ages and ages of waiting, early in 

 the spring, we finally started for the em- 

 barkation point. On our way we stopped at 

 St. Mars de Loquenay. While there we 

 went to a grocery store and, lo and behold, 

 there was a five-gallon jar of the finest 



Fig. 4. — Frenchman standing beside upturned hive, 

 having cow-manure insulation. 



white granulated honey that I ever saw. I 

 bet there was more honey sold in that store 

 then than there had been for the last 50 

 years. We also bought some butter, and 

 then we all went up on the public square 

 and using a stone wall for a table we gorged 

 ourselves with this delicious food. The ac- 

 companying picture shows us thus pleasant- 

 ly occupied. 



I learned that this honey was raised 

 nearby, several apiaries being in that vicini- 

 ty. So a comrade and myself went on a bee- 

 hunt. We succeeded in finding four of the 

 quaintest hives I ever saw. They were 

 made a great deal like those I described 

 and told of seeing in southern France, but 

 were smaller and as a further protection the 

 baskets were plastered to the depth of about 

 an inch and a half with cow manure, which 



