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GLEANINGS TN BEE CULTURE 



October, 1921 



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Beekeeping as a Side Line 



Grace Allen 



ur 



THE sideline 

 beekeepers of 

 the country 

 are like a big 

 affectionate fam- 

 ily. Drawn to- 

 gether by bonds 

 of enthusiastic 

 interest in the 

 same great live 



subject, they are necessarily interested in 

 one another's experiences. Which is why 

 this department is this mouth beginning a 

 short series of sketches of sideliners, big 

 and little, known and unknown men, women, 

 and children (almost). 



John Bieseman's Three B's. 

 The three E's have long been famous for 

 their unpopularity with many younger gen- 

 erations of civilized races. It is the three 

 B's that hold the attention of John Biese- 

 man of Hemlock, O. "Birds and Bees and 

 Blossoms" — thus he enumerates his three 

 great interests. What a combination that 

 is! He is a photographer, too, and his 

 charmingly harmonious sidelines, the three 

 B's, are made still more fascinating by the 

 pictures he takes, often catching and pre- 

 serving bits of perfect but transient beauty 

 otherwise lost. 



Being a specialist in any line is com- 

 mendable, of course; but to be a specialist 

 and nothing else must be most tiresome. 

 "The world is so full of a number of 

 things" that any limitation of interest, 

 any "circle premature," is like a thief 

 stealing from us some of the wealth that is 

 ours, some part of our ancient divine in- 

 heritance. To claim an interest in the three- 

 fold world of bees, birds, and flowers is to 

 make oneself master of the very heart of 

 this ancestral domain. 



Blossoms. 

 Mr. Bieseman's interest in flowers and 

 his careful observation are shown in a let- 

 ter written to help establish the identity of 

 a plant unknown to a fellow beekeeper. ' ' I 

 have only on two occasions found this plant 

 in our locality," he wrote, "both times 

 near the edge of a wood. The first time I 

 met several plants growing together on al- 

 most bare ground, where potatoes had been 

 grown for two years previous. This was 

 new ground — forest trees had been felled 

 (the pity of it!) just prior to the planting. 

 These were fine specimen plants, apparently 

 the select of their growth; square stems of 

 a wiry appearance, and the leaves, very 

 inconspicuous, lent it a skeleton appear- 

 ance. The flowers, small and a purple red, 

 were the curiosity of the whole. The en- 

 tire plant presents a striking, singular ap- 

 pearance, and I was attracted to it by 

 many bees. If this plant were of a weedy 

 nature it would surely have accumulated 

 here; but the following year and the next, 

 no trace of them could be found. ' ' 



Then, after chatting easily aboijt the 



1 



Pulse family and 

 the F i g w r t 

 family and the 

 Mint family and 

 Mrs. W. "Starr 

 D a n a's book, 

 "How to Know 

 Wild Flowers," 

 he runs on into 

 bee talk, of 

 queen-rearing and winter packing and fovil 

 brood, or, another time, into bird talk. 



Birds. 



"We have had a variety of birds in our 

 yard for the last few years. I commenced 

 to attract them during the winter, which 

 can be done at the window shelves, to the 

 great entertainment of the occupants with- 

 in. We have quite a variety of birds that 

 nest in our yard. A number of years ago 

 a pair of phoebes brought their fledglings 

 to our home apiary next door to me and 

 they were seen to catch workers which they 

 fed to their young. I have not observed 

 them in our yard since. These birds nest 

 from overhanging rock, and also where they 

 find shelflike room on architecture, away 

 from sight of human presence. Just now a 

 robin, a woodthrush, and a white-throated 

 sparrow are diligently searching the gar- 

 den ground within a few yards of my win- 

 dow. Insect life is bound to be reduced 

 here where they glean for such morsels 

 several times a day; and when they have 

 young, they will need ever so many more. 

 You can learn quickly what feeds 

 to put out during the winter to have the 

 choicest of small birds around you. Almost 

 all the insect-eating birds will eat suet dur- 

 ing the winter; sunflower seed is the staple 

 bird food here; nut kernels also by many; 

 hemp is also much eaten. A bird in the yard 

 is worth two in the cage, as to entertain- 

 ment and economic value. These winter- 

 feeding birds are far in advance of others 

 in early song and nest-building. The car- 

 dinal, song sparrow, and others are singing 

 as volubly now (February) as if it were 

 springtime. They will build their nests 

 close by and feed their young from insect 

 life around us, thus freeing our crops from 

 much injury. . . . This morning I had 

 a mocking bird in the yard close to the cot- 

 tage. It ate from the branches of bitter- 

 sweet berries which I have on the feeding 

 shelves. " 



Bees. 

 Altho his father had been a beekeeper 

 for years "in a more primitive way," hav- 

 ing once as many as 70 hives, it was not 

 until 1916 that Mr. Bieseman began keeping 

 bees after his own fashion, with modern 

 hives and progressive methods. Because of 

 a steep rocky hillside, he placed his hives 

 in long close rows, on such stands as he 

 could devise to fit the requirements. There, 

 packed in dry leaves in long sectional cases, 

 they meet the snows and winds of winter. 



