700 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



November, 1921 



opened the great out-of-doors to me and 

 benefited me very much. ' ' She now rents 

 several apiary sites, having 40-odd colonies 

 on each, and is one of the incorporators of 

 a company, vsiith a manager to look after 

 the apiaries. 



"Bees mean a great deal to me now," she 

 writes. "Started merely as something alive 

 to watch, they have grown and become very 

 much more than that. . . . When I 

 give up my profession, I want a garden and 

 some colonies in it, and, when I ata gone, 

 someone to tell the bees of my departure!" 



New Zealand Sidellner. 



Miss Mabel Shepherd of Southbrook, Can- 

 terbury, New Zealand, is neither a doctor, 

 lawyer, merchant, nor priest, yet she is a 

 most interesting beekeeper. Someone may 

 question whether, with more than 200 colo- 

 nies, she is really a sideliner. But she de- 

 clares herself that she is maid of all work 



Miss Shepherd had 90 colonies moved in one day 

 by motoi- truck carrying 20 colonies each trip. 



in the home, having only occasional help 

 with the housework, and any woman will 

 know that anything else is almost necessar- 

 ily a sideline. Surely that must be particu- 

 larly true on a farm — ^and Miss Shepherd's 

 two brothers are farmers. It did seem queer, 

 by the way, to read in a letter dated Janu- 

 ary 21, ' ' Harvest time is just commencing. ' ' 

 tho what followed was more comprehensible 

 — "and it is our busiest time, as all cook- 

 ing for the harvest hands is done in the 

 home." 



Miss Shepherd has three yards. She de- 

 cided that to be successful to any large de- 

 gree in honey production, she must do it on 

 a broad ejiough scale to pay to hire the hard 

 work done. New Zealand does a large ex- 

 port business, and this trade requires honey 

 to be in cases containing 100 pounds net of 

 honey. It takes strong men to handle tons 

 of honey in 100-pound cases. So she has 

 branched out to three yards, altho, as she 

 puts it, "I am only in a small way com- 

 pared to some of our beekeepers in New 

 Zealand, especially in the North Island — 

 but success is not to be had anywhere with- 

 out hard work, and plenty of it." 



The queen-rearing yard is at home, and 

 queen-rearing is the end of the work that 

 Miss Shepherd likes best. She got her start 

 with fine queens from the A. I. Eoot Com- 

 pany. There is also at home a honey-produc- 

 ing yard of 90 colonies that had to be moved 

 there about a year ago right during the 

 honey flow. Then there is a small yard of 

 30 or more colonies about four miles away. 

 They take a small hand extractor there and 

 work right out in the open under the trees. 

 In the evening one of the brothers comes 

 out in a spring cart and carries home the 

 honey, which is strained and put up at 

 home. Still another yard of about 90 colo- 

 nies is 25 miles away. There are permanent 

 buildings for camping in (doesn't it sound 

 inviting?) as well as an extracting house 

 with a 4-frame friction-drive extractor and 

 a room for storing the honey. 



It is always easy, she says, to get plenty 

 of help from neighbors, who like a change 

 for a few days and don 't mind the extra 

 pocket money either; and when they go to 

 this distant apiary, which is ' ' close to beau- 

 tiful bush" (doesn't it sound attractive?) 

 they usually have their car full of people 

 ready for a jolly combination of camp life 

 and bee work. For beekeeping, Miss Shep- 

 herd insists, "can be made one long picnic 

 among beautiful surroundings if cheery as- 

 sociates are chosen for helpers. And the 

 stings play no small part in the production 

 of fun." 



Isn't that a fine strong robust view of 

 one's work? But what else than a fine 

 strong robust view of life would be ex- 

 pected of anyone having such a mother as 

 Miss Shepherd has? They are in partner- 

 ship with the bees, these two, and many a 

 trip the mother takes to the outyards with 



Miss Shepherd's 90 colonies on the night they ar- 

 rived home. 



the others. She wires all the frames and 

 "is tlie general inspiration of the place." 

 Let the beekeepers of the world stand with 

 bared heads before the thought of this 

 mother wiring frames on the happy cheerful 

 New Zealand farm — totally blind — ' ' and 

 the general inspiration of the place." 



