May, 1920 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



283 



bees," he hazarded. "Not all of them," 

 she protested. 



About that time a certain widow, having 

 had a few bees left her which she was not 

 able to look after, said, ' ' Bring your bees 

 out here." There were fruit trees in bloom, 

 locust to come and fields that promised 

 clover. ' ' We wish we had some way to 

 move them, ' ' they hinted delicately. ' ' I 

 have an old horse and a small covered 

 wagon, ' ' said the widow, ' ' would they 

 lielpf" "They would be the very thing!" 

 cried the pair at once. For they liked — oh, 

 very much they liked doing things different 

 from what they had ever done before and 

 different from what their friends and neigh- 

 bors were constantly doing. And in this 

 old horse and gypsy-like wagon they saw 

 a gay shatterer of routine. They were in 

 no hurry — there was no compulsion about 

 moving the bees, so they could take all sum- 

 mer, if they chose. ' ' We '11 move them off 

 and on, ' ' they decided. So off and on dur- 

 ing that wonder spring and its full-throated 

 summer and its rich, ripe autumn, whenever 

 the desire smote them, they moved out a 

 few hives of bees. Because the man was 

 busy all day, they moved them mostly in 

 the evening. So the desire smote them 

 oftenest when the moon promised to shower 

 their way with silver light. Then out from 

 the maple and plum trees they would drive 

 into the gathering dusk, both perched on 

 the seat of the queer little wagon, with four 

 to eight hives tucked snugly in the rear. 

 And out into the country they would jog. 

 Sometimes they talked gaily, sometimes not 

 at all; sometimes they ate sandwiches and 

 little cakes, apples and oranges and fat ripe 

 bananas; and always the man had hidden in 

 some pocket chocolate bars or peanut brit- 

 tle or chewy caramels. Once they got lost 

 on the country roads leading across from 

 pike to pike, and had finally to pull up so 

 steep ami straight a hill that the top seemed 

 quite too much to hope the poor old horse 

 to attain. Once when the night was warm 

 they stopped at a country store for ice-cream 

 cones — indisputable signs of the democratic 

 spirit! (But there was such privacy in the 

 covered wagon and the night!) Once they 

 went in the morning, early, before anyone 

 in their neighborhood was astir. "All in 

 the dew and the dawn we'll go," they had 

 planned rapturously the evening before. It 

 rained that morning instead, but out they 

 drove into it, singing; and it was one of the 

 best of all those hive-laden drives, for it 

 was summertime, and what could be more 

 refreshing in hot summer than a cool slow 

 drive thru a soft morning rain? 



Always there was a mad dash at the oth- 

 er end to get started home. The old horse 

 and the gypsy wagon were left out there, 

 where they belonged, and down nearly half 

 a mile of country road the pair swiftly 

 sprinted to catch the very last streetcar go- 

 ing back into town on that line. It was al- 

 ways a breathless affair, and always a suc- 

 cess. The last dash was the most exciting 



of all, and most ludicrous. The widow had 

 sold her horse; not the wagon. So that last 

 trip was made with a horse from a country 

 stable at the end of the carline. Poor 

 beastie — maybe he hadu 't always been so 

 slow! The hives were finally unloaded, the 

 horse unhitched and urged off down the 

 road. He saw no reason to hurry — he didn 't 

 know the meaning of the word. But that 

 midnight car, the last car of all — it had to 

 be met. So the man pulled while the woman 

 switched. At last he broke into a trot, and 

 man and beast went rollicking off down the 

 road with the woman trailing behind, fairly 

 reeling with laughter and haste and weari- 

 ness. She and the streetcar reached the 

 spot at the same critical minute, to find the 

 distracted man storming the stable crying, 

 "Anybody here to take this horse?" 



At last these unpai-alleled delights came 

 to an end, for with the close of the season 

 all the bees they were willing to spare from 

 their own vine and fig tree had been moved. 

 There were forty-odd hives in the new yard. 

 Winter settled upon them; then another 

 spring broke, another summer blossomed, 

 the honey was harvested, autumn dropped 

 quietly down, and lo, the widow said they 

 would have to take the bees away. 



This, then, they did in this spring of 

 1920; not, however, after the long-drawn-out 

 off-and-on-ness of the first moving. There 

 was nothing old-fashioned about this, noth- 

 ing leisurely, nothing at all of dawn or 

 dewy eve. It was all highly efficient, all 

 modernized and motorized. One March day 

 a tiny cavalcade could have been seen wend- 

 ing its way along the pikes and across the 

 lanes between, two trucks, each piled high 

 with bees and supplies, and the pair follow- 

 ing in a Ford car with a miscellaneous as- 

 sortment of odds and ends. Another truck- 

 load of supers and one of winter cases and 

 tables and miscellanies, completed the job 

 promptly and efficiently. Everything mov- 

 ed like clockwork — except when one hive 

 leaked bees as it was being loaded, and one 

 of the darkey drivers disappeared. "Where 

 are you, Shanghai?" called the man, after 

 veiling the other driver. ' ' Heah I is, " 

 came the reply. Sure enough, there he was 

 — flat on the ground under the other truck! 

 ' ' Why, Shanghai, ' ' protested the man, 

 amused, "you aren't seared, are you?" 

 "Naw suh, " the driver grinned good-na- 

 turedly, "I aint skeert, but I'se a little 

 skittish!" 



"Remember what David Harum said 

 about dogs?" a witty man asked me lately. 

 "No," I admitted. "He said," the man 

 reminded me, ' ' that a certain number of 

 fleas were good for a dog, they kept him 

 from brooding over being a dog. And don 't 

 you suppose, ' ' he went on, ' ' that a certain 

 amount of foul brood is good for a beekeep- 

 er? It keeps him from brooding over being 

 a beekeeper!" I wonder. 



