•Irl.v, ]!)22 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



45;? 



cultui'al loaiiiiis's fvoni graiidfatliers or un- 

 ck's wlio kept bees in the good old ways of 

 the good old days, some glean the desire 

 from the printed ])age, and some enter into 

 the apiary through the interest of a friend, 

 or a husband, or a wife. Some, in the old, 

 inevitably adapted Avords, are born to bees, 

 some achieve bees and some liave bees 

 tlirust upon them. 



The sideline beekeeper shown herewith 

 reached his hives by the wife route. For 

 it was his shorter and plumper lialf who 

 first became interested. And she? She got 

 her germ in a poultry journal! Being a bit 

 thorough-going by nature, she was reading 

 all the bulletins and journals slie could di- 

 gest, to learn how to keep chickens right. 

 In one particular journal, on a i)articularly 

 momentous day, she read a chatty article 

 by a backlot chicken-lover, who concluded 

 by suggesting that poultry-raisers might 

 well widen their back-yard activities to in- 

 clude various other things — among them, a 

 hive of bees. One needn't do any work, 

 he assured his already busy readers, the 

 bees would do it all. They would — 'tis a 

 familiar heresy — work for nothing and board 

 themselves — and in due season the chicken 

 fancier could go out with a pan and a knife 

 and get his honey. Just so. 



That sounds good to me, said Friend Wife, 

 let's get some bees. Where do people get 

 bees, they began asking their friends. No- 

 body knew. At last, at the State Fair, the 

 laily found a beekeeper exhibiting his 



"Friend Wife's" banner hive came out second. 



wares. Will you sell me some bees, she 

 asked. I will do anything I can for you, he 

 answered; I will take a quarter from you 

 and send you a trial subscription to Glean- 

 ings (whatever that is, murmured the lady); 

 but I cannot sell you any bees. That was 

 in September. 



All winter long, though she had never 

 seen the inside of a beehive, the lady read 

 Gleanings. She had no idea what manner 

 of thing a brood-chamber might be, or a 

 ripe cell, or a shook swarm, or a queen- 

 excluder. Like Sanskrit sounded such 

 phrases as laying workers, foul brood, royal 

 jelly, failing queen. But she read on — it 

 was what she had spent her quarter for. 

 And at last, just as winter was leaving the 

 earth, the man remembered having once 

 known, long ago, a man who had talked 

 about bees and died. So he looked up the 



dead beekeeper's family and found a four- 

 teen-year-old son who would sell him a hive 

 of bees for $5.00. Thus he became a side- 

 line beekeeper. 



To such good purpose had Friend Wife 

 read Gleanings all winter that on first open- 

 ing this hive, the first one that either of 

 them had ever seen the inside of, they 

 found their queen; and the lady clipped 

 her. Soon two of them were reading. That 

 summer they had a swarm — 100% increase. 

 Year after year they increased a little. And 

 when they had reached the noble proportion 

 of 50 hives, they made a division. These 

 shall be yours and these mine, thev said to 



The bees in the kesr stored about 75 pounds of 



honey. But the tall one was the banner hive, 

 one another. The man, however, worked 

 in an ofdce all day. So he took the smaller 

 half. These he works on Saturday after- 

 noons, weather permitting, or Sunday 

 mornings. 



One of liis interesting experiences was 

 when, against the advice of Friend Wife, 

 he bought a colony of bees from a negro 

 man. They were in a "kaig," and he 

 brought them to the yard one night, in a 

 sack. Then closed the entrance by tacking 

 a piece of roofing tight across it. He fitted 

 an old bottom-board over the top and set 

 thereon a shallow super. Then another — 

 and another. The bees stored 75 pounds of 

 beautiful wliite honey in his supers. But 

 he did not succeed in getting his shy, elus- 

 ive queen to occupy them, as he, had plan- 

 ned. So one briglit day in midsummer, with 

 his permission and several assistants, Friend 

 Wife transferred them for him in strictly 

 orthodox style. 



His bee work means much to him, says 

 Mr. Allen. (Yes, his name happens to he 

 Allen, too — and a very fine, rare man he is 

 — and his bees are on Abbott Eoad in David- 

 son County, Tennessee.) They bring liim 

 some financial return, of course; but out 

 of all proportion to this or to the work 

 put in, they bring him recreation after long 

 hours in an office, and provide him with an 

 absorbing out-of-door interest. He is tlior- 

 oughly progressive in his methods, though 

 his limited time necessarily forces him into 

 many short cuts. For, ii^ addition to tak- 

 ing complete cliarge of his own hives, lie 

 courteously assists his wife with hers when 

 supers get lieavy. He works hard wlien lie 

 works, but lie also spends many a pleasant 

 lionr of relaxation among his bees. 



