March, 1920 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CUIiTURE 



155 



aud a supply catalog, even before getting 

 his bees. He had studied them both pretty 

 thoroly. Apparently he knew the catalog 

 from Alexander Feeders to Zinc Sheets. I 

 commend this reading practice to others — 

 consistently, too, for I did it myself — not 

 the catalogs, tho. They terrify me to this 

 day. But for six months before I ever saw 

 the inside of a hive of bees, that is from 

 October to March, I was steadily reading 

 Gleanings, a bit blindly at first, to be sure, 

 yet with constantly increasing understand- 

 ing. We bought ABC before we bought 

 bees, and when that first colony came, with 

 no one to show us how we opened the hive, 

 found the first queen we had ever seen, 

 clipped her with manicure scissors and much 

 trembling and entire success, and passed 

 solemn judgment on the question of the 

 general condition of things. Visiting other 

 yards is the easiest way to learn; yet when 

 one knows in the fall that he is going to 

 buy in the spring, those long winter months 

 ought to be made good use of by careful 

 reading and study. 



Nearly everyone knows that Maurice 

 Maeterlinck, the great Belgian dramatist, 

 is in the United States. We thought he was 

 coming to Nashville to lecture. And I was 

 one great thrill! But the negotiations fell 

 thru. It was hard to know whether that 

 jtart of me that loves page after page of 

 verbal beauty, or the part that loves bees, 

 was more disappointed. But when we later 

 learned that his speaking English had not 

 proved equal to the demands of lectures, and 

 the remaining lectures were to be given in 

 French, our disappointment, while by no 

 means lessened, took on a somewhat differ- 

 ent tone. Even tho they do not care for 

 the strange and wonderful beauty of "Pel- 

 leas and Melisande" and "Barbe Bleue" 

 and the other strange and wonderful plays, 

 nearly everyone had read and loved "The 

 Blue Bird"; while great hosts, even of those 

 who know nothing else of bees but this 

 great book, have been fascinated by "The 

 Life of the Bee." 



There are some beekeepers of broad ex- 

 perience and signal success, some men of 

 karning and science, who advise beginners 

 against the reading of this book. "Don't 

 pay any attention to such a work," they 

 say; "read A B C or Phillips or Pellett or 

 Miller or Gleanings and then you'll learn 

 something." To me that's a little like say- 

 ing read only the Book of Proverbs with its 

 ' ' Hear, my son, the instruction of a 

 father," and not the Psalms chanting ma- 

 jestically, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates! 

 And be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors! 

 And the King of Glory will come in"; like 

 knowing the Ten f!ommandments with their 

 "Thou shalt not kill — steal — bear false wit- 

 ness", and not the prophets with their ex- 

 alted phrases, ' ' The earth shall be filled 

 with the glory of the Lord as the waters 

 cover the sea" — with their thundered, "Let 



justice roll down as waters and righteous- 

 ness as an overflowing stream." — with their 

 noble simplicity of "What doth the Lord 

 require of thee, but to do justly and to love 

 mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?"; 

 like making a study of the spectrum, with 

 its waves of light, 390 millimicrons long in 

 the violet and lengthening to 770 milli- 

 microns long in the red, and never standing 

 with lifted eyes before the rainbow, or feel- 

 ing the responsive surge in Wordsworth's 



" My heart leaps up when I behold 

 A rainbow in the sky." 



Oh, that way with books will never do — it 

 is not half good enough. Over and over, re- 

 peatedly, would I urge solid study, thoro 

 mastery of facts and principles; but just as 

 often and with perhaps more earnestness 

 do I cry out for the eternal reaching out of 

 our spirits towards beauty and grace and 

 the inspiration of something not to be 

 measured nor weighed nor set down in rules, 

 but to be drawn into our inmost souls and 

 made forever a part of us. 



So it seems to me that every beekeeper, 

 especially every sideline beekeeper, to 

 w^hom the bees may frankly mean some- 

 thing more vital than dollars and cents 

 alone, may well read and love "The Life of 

 the Bee." Not as a text-book should he 

 read it, for not as a text-book was it writ- 

 ten; nor as a text-book should it be judged. 

 See, in his first chapter, the author says: 

 "It is not my intention to write a treatise 

 on apiculture, or on practical beekeeping. 

 Excellent works of the kind abound in all 

 civilized countries * * * Dadant * * 

 Cook, Cheshire, Cowan, Eoot, etc. * * * 

 Nor is this book to be a scientific monogram 

 on Apis Melliflca * * * i wish to speak 

 of the bees very simply, as one speaks of a 

 subject one knows and loves. * * * The 

 reader of this book will not learn therefore 

 how to manage a hive. ' ' 



That is frank and honest and removes the 

 beautiful volume at once from the class of 

 text-books, to be judged wholly on its own 

 merits. But there are thousands who waive 

 the privilege of judging it at all — they mere- 

 ly love it. 



IN SPRING. 



Earth wears her winter outwardly, 



But the tender spring 

 She dra\vs from her own spacious heart 

 Where she has held a place apart 



To do her dreaming in. 



Then as she may she lays aside 



Bitterness and chill, 

 To spread her woven dreaming out 

 On all the grass and trees about 



And over every hill. 



I wish all hearts were dreaming hearts. 



Then a mood like spring 

 \\'ou]d clothe in beauty every thought. 

 And dced.s of woven dreaming wrought 



Make life a gracious thing. 



