GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



January, 1921 



Si 



Beekeeping as a Side Line 



Grace Allen 



BEFORE 

 making my 

 plea this 

 first month of 

 the new year 

 for the advan- 

 tages of bee- 

 keeping as a 

 sideline, let me 

 insist first on 

 the importance of sidelines themselves. 



When a man 's chief work has been chosen 

 under a flaming inner compulsion, as the 

 one thing in the whole world he wants to 

 do, then perhaps he scarcely requires a side- 

 line, unless, indeed, for health 's sake._ Pos- 

 sibly a vocation worthy of the name,_ in its 

 rich primitive sense of a calling, a bidding, 

 an invitation, leaves no room in one's heart 

 for an avocation that calls one away. Prob- 

 ■ably sidelines, avocations, are of modern 

 growth, born of commercialism and a 

 strangely unyielding economic system that 

 no one understands well enough to improve. 

 But true it is that today countless men 

 speak of their work as «t|^rind, a monoton- 

 ous routine, a strain. And they plan instinct- 

 ively and wisely to temper it with golf, to 

 balance it with hunting and fishing, to for- 

 get its grim unloveliness in a garden. Often, 

 even those who love their work also love 

 to play. 



So an increasing number of men are set- 

 ting themselves deliberately to some inter- 

 est or game completely apart from their 

 daily work. Of all such, surely those of the 

 great outdoors are most to be desired for 

 business and professional men. To a man or 

 woman who has been for many hours of 

 many days shut in behind brick walls, golf 

 or gardening or beekeeping will be of more 

 benefit and probably bring keener delight 

 than chess or wood carving or the collect- 

 ing of etchings. 



The sideline activity worthy to stand 

 quite at the head of the list must call its 

 follower out into God's sunshine, not force 

 him into storms and disagreeable weather; 

 it must exercise his muscles without strain- 

 ing them; it must be baffling enough to drive 

 him to books and journals, tho not heavy 

 enough to force him into long hours of dif- 

 ficult studv; it must tempt him to a con- 

 stantlv increasing skill, without requiring 

 too long practice or too wearisome toil; and 

 it must cast its spell over his very soul, 

 until there shall awaken within a new en- 

 thusiasm, a new wonder and a great love. 

 And for most of mankind, if a sideline thus 

 bring charm and challenge, pleasure and 

 books and health, it will be pursued with a 

 double zest if in the other hand it brings a 

 profit that can be reckoned in dollars and 

 cents. 



Outside of a garden, then, where is there 

 to be found a sideline so desirable as bee- 

 keeping? I say outside of a garden, because 

 something in my heart makes me say it 

 God does so surely walk in gardens in the 



RJ 



cool of the day 

 — in all other 

 places, too, and 

 at all other 

 times. But, oh, 

 especially in gar- 

 dens do we see 

 and feel Him, 

 and especially in 

 the cool of the 

 how Alfred Noyes 



tlie evening, when the sky is an old 

 and loved 



;;irment, 



day. Do you remember 

 says it? 



"In llic coul L 

 story 

 Slowly dying. Ijut remembered, aj 

 with passion still, 

 Hush! . . the fringes of His 



the fading golden glory, 

 Softly rustling as He cometh o'er the far green 

 hill." 

 But where is there anything lovelier to 

 add to a garden than a few hives of bees, 

 painted white and set among the roses and 

 hollyhocks and daffodils, or under young 

 fruit trees or where the lilacs bloom f 



Take first the mere matter of weather. A 

 man goes faithfully forth to his regular 

 work, no matter how hard the winds i)low 

 or the storms howl, no matter how biting 

 the cold or how pelting the rain. But when 

 he leaves his real work for a sideline in- 

 terest, then he appreciates being able to 

 avoid "winter and rough weather." See, 

 then, how nicely beekeeping links itself with 

 only pleasant days. Even during the spring 

 and summer the bees are to be left alone in 

 bad weather. And the last work done in the 

 bee yard, or the "bee garden," as Gilbert 

 White more gracefully says, in the blue-gold 

 days of October while the bees are still fly- 

 ing to the fields bringing in their last fall 

 nectar, is to see that each hive is heavy 

 with a wealth of sealed stores, and that all 

 its conditions are right as to numbers and 

 room and general prosperity, to carry it 

 without further attention on thru the win- 

 ter and the long unpredictable spring. Some 

 beekeepers then carry the hives into a cel- 

 lar, some put them into large cases and 

 pack them around with thick warm lavers 

 of leaves or chaff, while others let them 

 stay where they are. Then they leave them 

 alone, and the outside bee work is finished 

 for that year. No going out into the biting, 

 bitter days of winter. How shiveringly T 

 remember the winter work when chickens 

 were my sideline! — bundling up to carry out 

 boiling water to thaw out drinking vessels 

 frozen solid, getting chilled and cold. The 

 only work a beekeeper does in winter is to 

 sit by his fire, reading bee books and jour- 

 nals, to make his plans for the next sea- 

 son, and in his shop, or kitchen perhaps, to 

 put new hives together. And eat his honey! 

 Those who have never kept bees may 

 wonder that so simple an occupation should 

 require any study. They know people who 

 keep bees, and have kept them for years, 

 and they are quite sure — and oh, they are 

 right about it, too! — that these people are 



