524 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



C 



Beekeeping as a Side Line 



LJ 



DO people to- 

 day, side- 

 line b e e- 

 keepers, for in- 

 stance, keep dia- 

 ries and "jour- 

 nals ' ' ? Last win- 

 ter, while read- 

 ing the "Life 

 and Letters ' ' of 



George Eliot, I was constantly amazed at 

 the journal she kept. The entries which ap- 

 peared in the book ranged from long de- 

 tailed accounts of their travels on the con- 

 tinent, the things they saw and the people 

 they met, to the briefest of single memo- 

 randa, such as "Wrote the last word of 

 'Adam Bede' and sent to Mr. Langford. 

 Jubilate." — or "Declined the American 

 proposition, which was to write a story of 

 twelve parts in the New York Century for 

 £1200." 



This particular sideline beekeeper does 

 not keep any journal. If she had done so 

 in the early summer of this year, she might 

 one evening, in verbose mood, have written 

 something to this effect. 



This was the day Mrs. S. was to, take 

 lunch with me. She understands from past 

 experience that lunch with me means a very 

 simple affair, as I cannot, if the mornings 

 are to be spent as planned, spend much time 

 preparing dainty fixin's. Why shouJd women 

 do so much of that, anyhow? Do we prove 

 the friendliness of our spirits, or their 

 worthwhileness, by the variety or rareness 

 of our menus? Yesterday, when in town, I 

 bought — yes, bought — some chicken salad ; 

 this morning I made a mayonnaise dressing 

 and a simple quick little sour cream cake; 

 prepared the lettuce and the strawberries, 

 telephoned my nice friendly neighbor for 

 some whipping cream; and dusted up my 

 house. I was to meet Mrs. S. at the Park 

 Station and drive her over. It had been 

 my intention to have the little blue and 

 gray table in the breakfast room all set be- 

 fore I left, but somehow other things made 

 me too late — driving into town with A. A., 

 running over to the beeyard, catching a lost 

 baby rabbit and giving him to the little boy 

 cherry pickers — such things, you know. 

 However, everything was crisply ready in 

 the icebox, and it would take only a few 

 minutes to set it out. 



Just as I was about to hurry into company 

 clothes to go whirling over to the station, 

 the telephone rang. Over the wire came the 

 pleasant even tones of a beloved friend liv- 

 ing about a mile away. Now these dear 

 friends had one hive of bees sitting in their 

 orchard, a hive left quite to its own devices. 

 And this morning this sweet voice was tell- 

 ing me that the bees were swarming; they 

 had no hive and didn't knoAV Avhat to do — 

 could I come over and help? "I can't," I re*- 

 gretted, "Mrs. S. is coming to lunch and I 

 ought to be on the way to the station this 

 minute." After hanging up, I reconsidered 

 and called back. "If vou '11 have someone 



Grace Allen 



S 



LJ 



August, 1922 



head off Mrs. S., 

 so she won't 

 walk all the way 

 over here in the 

 hot sun,. I'll run 

 to the yard and 

 get a hive and 

 go on over in 

 my house dress 

 and hive your 

 swarm before lunch." So over to the yard I 

 dashed in the faithful Ford, assembled a 

 hive and dashed back, past the little brown 

 bungalow, over to Granny White Pike. There 

 sat Mrs. M., lying in wait for Mrs. S. To- 

 gether we sped over to the station where 

 the patient lunch guest still waited. We ex- 

 plained as we went, and soon were driving 

 in through the beautiful grassy wooded 

 acres that make the approach to Mrs. M.'s 

 lovely home — and on around the house to 

 the orchard. 



And there hung two swarms! — one me- 

 dium-sized one hanging like a convenient 

 brown pear from an apple tree, and one 

 large long one strung out most inconvenient- 

 ly along a thick large limb of a peach tree. 

 I tackled that one first, it was so much lar- 

 ger and more important; but it was trouble- 

 some, as such swarms are. Two negro men 

 leaned on their hoes in the garden, two 

 colored women watched through screened 

 windows. Mrs. M. and Mrs. S. stood to one 

 side, loyally offering to help, while Jock, the 

 Airedale pup, waited in the car. Someone 

 brought a ladder, someone found a basket. 

 After much climbing up and down, much 

 shaking and brushing and waiting and per- 

 spiring, I got most of the bees in the bas- 

 ket and dumped them down in front of the 

 hive. "There," I said, "that's one." 



Then I went to the apple tree. This one 

 will be easy, I told myself. One quick jerk 

 landed them in the basket; from which, 

 however, they instantly rose, and then flew 

 over to the other tree and began draping 

 themselves along that same may-I-say-pesky- 

 branch that had so recently been the scene 

 of my struggle Avith the first swarm! Wait- 

 ing again till they were Avell clustered — if 

 you can call that sort of thing a cluster — I 

 repeated previous maneuvres, and after 

 much brushing got them. And then — 

 spilled them] From the top of the ladder 

 to the ground! Basket and all, crash! Sheer 

 awkwardness, that, hot and hurried aAvk- 

 wardness. At that moment Mrs. M.'s fine 

 and friendly voice came floating across to 

 ray dripping dismay, Avhere I sat on the 

 ground and laughed. "Lunch is all ready," 

 she said; "you are both my guests." And in 

 we actually went, my silk-clad guest and I 

 in mv blue gingliam, and ate lunch Avith 

 Mrs. M. in her large cool dining room. 



After lunch, the appletree-peachtrec- 

 spilled-out swarm being again strung out 

 along the stout peach branch, I again scaled 

 the ladder. At the first touch, they took to 

 wing and were off OA'er the barn lot to no 

 one knows Avhere. Can a^ou blame them? The 



