588 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



C 



Beekeeping as a Side Line 



LJ 



HOW full life 

 is! One great 

 glad morn- 

 ing last spring I 

 was watching 

 the bees on the 

 stoneerop, the 

 pink moss y 

 three-fingered, or 

 perhaps I should 

 say three toed, crowsfoot, that grows so gay- 

 ly on poor shallow rocky soil like some of 

 ours (not all, though). I was sitting on a low 

 flat rock in the middle of it, idly counting 

 the bees, and feeling something at once 

 strangely stirring and gently soothing, all 

 alone there in the sun-lit quiet, when a sud- 

 den whirr of wings made me instantly all 

 attention and very still. Eight there, al- 

 most where I could reach her with my 

 hand, came a little mother bird — unidenti- 

 fied, unfortunately, though she's none the 

 Jess happy — nor am I, much — for my not 

 knowing her name. There she was, with a 

 wiggly breakfast for the younglings in their 

 cosy nest among the buekbrush, close beside 

 me. After she had flown off on another for- 

 aging trip, I parted the branches and saw 

 the queer little babies, so unlovely in fact 

 and so lovely in promise — and thought how 

 some human souls are that way; just give 

 them a little more time, a little more love, 

 a little more sunshine, a little more strength- 

 ening of something wing-like — and watch 

 the divineness come; and soar off towards 

 God. I thanked the bees for stopping me 

 there, feeling as though a shining little ex- 

 tra drop of joy had been poured out that 

 spring morning for my drinking. 



Another bird incident was not due to t!)o 

 bees, though, but to the former owners of 

 our bungalow, who, worried lest the water 

 pipes in the basement freeze, had wrapped 

 them most fantastically with rags of every 

 color. Where one of these sagged down into 

 a bit of a pocket, quite private and imdis 

 turbed, a darling, darting, funny little wren 

 feathered her nest and reared her nurslings. 

 You see, living thus in the country — liow 

 proudly I still say it! — we leave things 

 pretty much open, it is so convenient to 

 have garage doors standing wide when driv- 

 ing home. The garage is connected with 

 the basement, so through the open doors the 

 wren had found her cosy rag-hujig oppov 

 tunity under the water pipes. When we 

 discovered her, "Now," we nsserted iii 

 high glee, "we have to leave the doors 

 open — -for her; and for the little chnppies 

 Later lenrning to fly." And wluit ex<'it(>- 

 ment the day they did fly out! They tonk 

 the basement by storm. 



Bees on Hop Clover. 

 Do bees work lespcdezaV Tliis question lias 

 been answered in bee journals by Vjoth yes 

 and no. Personally I don't know — I've never 

 seen them. But do bees work hop clover? 

 This I do know, for this locality, for this 

 season; by the uniiswerable f;ict of having 

 seen them work it. This was a poor season 



1 



Grace Allen 



kJ 



Septembbr, 1922 



here for white 

 clover, last 

 year's drought 

 having killed 

 most of it; we 

 had really only 

 scattering patch- 

 es of young clo- 

 ver from seed. 

 But a good suc- 

 cession of rains kept minor sources bloom- 

 ing more generously and steadily than 

 usual, and the bees found them all and 

 called them good. One day about the 

 first of June, coming home from some- 

 where — I'm always coming home from some- 

 where! — I stopped to gather daisies. They 

 were so nearly all gone, who could re- 

 sist those last ones? The particular field I 

 wandered through was humming gently in 

 the sun. It was bees on hop clover. They 

 weren 't fighting over it, you understand, yet 

 you could see them all around on the tight 

 trim little yellow blossom balls, gathering- 

 nectar. I didn't know it was hop clover — 

 I must admit that — until the Head of Agri- 

 culture at Peabody College so identified the 

 specimen I took in next morning. And he 

 was backed up by the Biology man. 



(I can't remember having ever seen hop 

 clover listed among nectar-producing plants. 

 It is not in mj^ old ABC nor in Pellett 's 

 "Productive Beekeeping," nor in a very 

 recent list of Tennessee honey sources com- 

 piled by Mr. Buclianan. I had expected to 

 get back my "Beekeeping" books by Dr. 

 Phillips and Mr. Pellett, both of which were 

 loaned out to my class — and look it up be- 

 fore copying this, which was written several 

 weeks ago. But meantime life led me so 

 heart-breaking a way that all such matters 

 were forgot. The books are still out — and 

 this must go off today. Wliat about hop 

 clover, anyway?) 



Driving Home from the Beeyard. 



How long it does sometimes take to driv 

 a Ford a mere mile! Especialh' if there 

 liappen to be "two of us.'' (Remember how 

 Festus cried out to God? — "There are two 

 of us!") And particularly when bees arc 

 thick on sweet clover and blackberries are 

 getting ripe! And still more particularly, 

 when those very two sowed that very sweet 

 clover! For they must stop again and again 

 to exclaim about the height of it and tlic 

 bloom of it and the bees on it. More, O 

 many, many more, than had been on tlic 

 hop clover. Swarming on it, the layman 

 would say. As for blackberries, how good 

 things are that you pick yourselves, wild 

 tilings ripening along a country road, that 

 you gather and eat when you ought to be 

 hurrying on home and getting dressed for 

 company. (Yes, they got there when only 

 50% of us was ready! But think of tlio 

 delight we had had and the memories woven 

 into the very fibre of us by that one short 

 drive from the beeyard home. And tlic coiii- 

 pany didn't mind. Tlicy said so.) 



