Dkckmi'.kr, 1922 



G L K A N I N G S IN R K lO CULTURE 



MOST of til is 

 Sid e 1 i n e 

 111 a t e r ial 

 was written 

 aboard train, 

 part of it on the 

 way across the 

 great plains to 

 Denver, some of 

 it on the way 



c 



u 



Beekeeping as a Side Line 



Grace Allen 



3 



lU 



i 



self in the whim- 

 sical desire to 

 address you all 

 directly, as in a 

 person;) I letter. 

 Thus: 



Dear Sideline 

 Friends of 

 Gleanings: 

 When one 

 back. It was so short a stay there, so comes to the end of a thing, he naturally 

 hrief a visit to a sister, not seen for years, stops a moment to look back. Looking 

 that tliere was no time to look up Colo- back now across my days with Gleanings 

 rado beekeepersT-exeept for the trip to I pass in memory over eight years, back 

 Boulder, where we visited Wesley Foster's to August, 1914, tragic summer of a trag- 

 plant, and were hospitably dined at his ic year. A prince was shot. Immortal little 



liome; so hospitably, in fact, and so gen- 

 erously, that the friendly talk following the 

 good dinner made it too late to drive out 

 to any of his yards. But they drove us up 

 Flagstaff Mountain, my first mountain drive. 



Belgium faced a whirlwind and saved the 

 world. France flashed to battle line. Eng- 

 land crossed the Channel. Earth was a 

 flame. 



It was during that overwhelming summer 



where to my unaccustomed eyes the world that I began writing for Gleanings. Before 



seemed spread out at our feet in the bril- that first devastating shot was fired, I had 



liant Colorado air. done the first article and the first little 



Mr. Foster and T ran in on Prof. T. D. A. verses. Great emotions swept all our hearts 



Cockerell, Entomologist of Boulder Univer- during those swift incredible days; we had 



sity, who showed us his wonderful collection all, later, engrossing war activities; yet the 



of bees; more than 700 species found in steady enduring accustomed occupations 



Colorado alone, besides uncounted others 

 from all parts of the globe. Such a col- 

 lection! All sizes, from some much larger 

 than our drones down to one from Africa 



went quietly on. Down in Tennessee, 

 Beauty still walked the hills, there were 

 roses and hollyhocks and mocking-birds, 

 courtesy and treasured traditions. As most 



(I believe) so tiny that a magnifying glass of you went your accustomed ways, apiarian 

 would be required to distinguish the de- and other, I went mine, happy with the bees 

 tail. And such colors! Many were banded and the new pleasant relation with Glean- 

 like our Italian honeybee, only more gaily, ings. 



with brilliant bands. Others were of solid But I was no prophet in August, 1914, 



colors — blues, greens, yellows, browns, I caught at that time no slightest glimpse 



shades I cannot name, irridescent, shimmer- of the long incredible crueltv nor the 



ing rainbow hues. There is no other col- 

 lection in the world to equal it, I was told 

 — not bv the modest Professor himself, but 

 on excellent authority. When he is through 

 with it. it is to go, he told us, to the Na- 

 tional Museum. 



On my last day in Denver we drove by 

 winding mountain roads up to beautiful 

 Echo Lake, stopping towards the top to put 



world-engulfing scope of the war. Xor did 

 I even glimpse the delight and satisfaction 

 to come to me through Gleanings, from the 

 unguessed beautiful friendships to be born 

 in its columns. They came on together, the 

 terrible far things and the beautiful near 

 ones. 



November, 1918, ended the war, setting 

 its length at a few months more than four 



fhaiiis on the wheels, as we had come into years. Still, in peace as in war, bees sought 



8 or 10 inches of snow. Yet when we stop- 

 ped, the men made a fire and we had a fine 

 beefsteak fry, in a pine woods at a height 

 of 10,f)00 feet, with snow on every side. 



Coming back east, I met Mr. Allen at St. 

 Louis, and on our wav to Chicago, we 

 stopped at Ha-milton, 111., where we were 

 royally entertained at the home of C. P. Da- 

 dant and his pleasant familv. There were 

 beautiful drives along the Mississippi, an in- 

 teresting visit to the prosperous plant of Da- 

 dant & Sons, a call at the home of Mr. Pel- 

 lett, happily recovering from a serious ill- 

 ness, and a tour throueh the great power 

 house connected with trie famous Keokuk 



clover blossoms in Tennessee and our 

 hearts knew the quiet serenity of living 

 among gentle people; and still, through tlie 

 columns of Gleanings, the pleasant jiew 

 friendships came and the old ones {rrew. 



Now, December, 1922, brings another les- 

 ser ending, that of my connection with 

 Gleanings, setting its length at a few 

 months more than eight years — four years of 

 war. four years of peace. 



Why am I leaving Gleanings, you ask? T 

 might sav. for that besr of all reasons. Be- 

 cause. (Bee-cause, someone would surelv 

 amend!) But it is really like this. That 

 night last summer when T stood beside my 



Dam. At Chicago, visiting another sister, the loved Mother in a room in Meinnhis' that 



time was again too brief to look up bee- 

 keepers. We reached home just in time to 

 pei this copied and rushed off. 



The rest of this Sideline Department for 

 December, 1922, I am going to indulge my- 



had suddenly become unendurably silent, 

 witli the hcavv unbreakable stillness follow- 

 ing the last breath of a loved one — an only 

 brother taken at thirtv-one with pneumonia 

 — that, night, and niimb dumb days that fol- 



