c 



NnvKMBER, 1922 



THE State 

 Fair was in 

 progress. In 

 the honey sec- 

 tion at the north 

 end of tlie Agri- 

 culture Building, 

 hundreds of bot 

 ties of rich am- 

 ber honey stood 



in rows against the white-covered windows 

 behind. Extractors and hives and uncap- 

 ping knives told the mysterious story to 

 tlie great public who do not know. Through 

 their glass sides the observation hives show- 

 ed bees, three-band Italians or bright five- 

 band Goldeus. Eibbons had been awarded — 

 blue ones hung proudly, red ones contented- 

 ly, yellow ones quietly; on extracted honey, 

 comb honey, granulated honey, beeswax, 

 honey vinegar, empty brood-combs, the bees 

 themselves and the general grand display. 



The crowds surged by. Their questions, 

 perennially funny, about queens and artificial 

 comb and if the bees were making honey, 

 were interspersed with such queries as, 

 Where is the cow made of butter, where are 

 the decorated cakes, where is the apple ex- 

 hibit? Visiting beekeepers kept turning up 

 at the honey exhibits, always to be wel- 

 comed with a quick warm handclasp — -here 

 is one of us. Then how the conversation 

 drifted on and on into the things that mat- 

 ter — to a beekeeper: how short the crop was 

 this year — and why — too much rain, with 

 one — not enough, with another — clover kill- 

 ed out by last year's drought; what about 

 foiil-broody section honey sweeping in here 

 from the west, with the smeary wooden dis- 

 card being thrown cheerfully into the alleys 

 because it is summer and there is no fire to 

 burn it and neither the chickens nor the 

 pig nor the family cow will eat it? — well, 

 some day something will be done about ship- 

 ping out section honey from foul brood ter- 

 ritory; what you getting for five-pound 

 buckets? — or Avhat's the prospect for aster? 

 — coming fine — too dry to yield — why, Man, 

 don't you know it rained Wednesday? — ask 

 the Fair management, they know, or the 

 church women running the eating booths, 

 they know — well, here's hoping, my hives 

 are mighty light now — my yard's already be- 

 ginning to smell sour. And so on and on, all 

 the loved old familiar beesy talk from bee- 

 man to beeman (speaking in generalities"). 



Then one afternoon, Friday it was, have 

 vou seen the live bee demonstration, asked 

 Hardin Foster, the young queen-breeder 

 from Columbia. Mr. Foster had been around 

 before, and the conversation had been ap- 

 propriately flavored with bees and queens. 

 Rut this was somethinsr ncAv. Live bee dem- 

 onstration? No, we didn't know there was 

 one. Where is it? In one of the sideshows, 

 I've been told, he answered. 



So we went to look it ur», three of us. In 

 one of the sideshows. Which one, we won- 

 dered, and who was putting it on and what 

 would it be like? Out into the strange 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Beekeeping as a Side Line 



Grace Allen 



1 



717 



medley that con- 

 stitutes the side- 

 show feature of 

 a state fair we 

 wandered, past 

 tlie Dodgem and 

 the Whip and 

 the Ferris Wheel 

 and the Merry- 

 go-round and the 

 House of Mirth and the Joy Trail and the 

 Old Mill and the Diving Belles; just where 

 in such a conglomeration would one find a 

 live been demonstration? Finally we reach- 

 ed a long tent affair; freaks, said the Man- 

 of-the-Party, it won't be here, but I better 

 ask. Eight here, quoth the ticket seller, who 

 promptly had our sixty cents and we were 

 inside. 



A dusky-skinned man was swallowing fire 

 and sending it back out. That was the first 

 thing we saw. The little crowd of side- 

 show devotees was there in front of this 

 fire-eater. But lo, at the far end of the line, 

 in a wire cage, was a small hive of bees and 

 a very normal-looking gentleman writing a 

 letter! Nothing freaky there, thank good- 

 ness, we remarked, starting joyfully in that 

 direction. But the pleasant-looking fat man 

 shooed us back. The show goes the other 

 way. he explained gently; and we, feeling 

 it proper to do as they wished, meekly 

 watched the dusky-skinned man swallow 

 more fire. Then came a misshapen little 

 dwarf, but this we dodged, by simply chat- 

 ting without watching. We have never liked 

 freaks. So I don't know what this one did, 

 nor the next one nor the next. But at last 

 the announcer was calling out that. Now, 

 ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Wood will show 

 you his famous — and we knew, with a little 

 thrill, that there we were, right in front of 

 the cage, and the show was starting. It 

 lasted only a few minutes: first, a little 

 talk on bees, such things as the three kinds 

 and how many eggs the queen lays; then 

 he jarred the bees off a frame into a special- 

 ly contrived hat, and, making appropriately 

 genial remarks, he donned the hat. Now you 

 see, he said — inevitably — I have bees in "my 

 bonnet. He removed the hat. One or two 

 bees remained on his bald head. Went over 

 the top, didn't they? he observed, brush- 

 ing them off. Now. he went on. I am going 

 to play ball with these bees — want to play 

 with me? — addressing a small boy who 

 promptly shrank back from the cage, shak- 

 ing his head. Deftly slipping a stiff card 

 under the bees, where he had emptied the 

 hat out, he threw them into one hand, tossed 

 them, decreasing in numbers, from one hand 

 to the other; and the demonstration was 

 over. 



We had decided not to show that we knew 

 anything about bees, but to ask some ques- 

 tions and see how they were answered. But 

 somehow we couldn't think of anything to 

 ask. The Man-of-the-Partv finallv made n 

 brave effort; the demonstrator answered. 

 Then, seeing us still standing there, while 



