THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



17 



POPULAR 



3ns xiPPRE HEN'S IONS IN 



REGARD TO BEE-CULTURE. 



Br E. E. Hasty. 



" Fussing with bees" is what they 

 call it, because, you see, they do 

 not think it laborious enough to be 

 called work. A very suitable oc- 

 cupation for confirmed invalids, 

 and constitutionally tired and re- 

 tired clergymen, and for ladies in 

 search of a sphere. These ideas 

 cannot be squelched at once, but 

 we can put in our protest, and 

 some day or other the truth will 

 prevail. 



Some women can keep bees. 

 And just so some women can raise 

 forty acres of corn. Success in 

 either path must be won by down- 

 right hard work. As a vocation 

 for women, bee-keeping does have 

 this much in its favor ; that great 

 tyrant " society" gives permission 

 to keep bees ; while if a woman 

 essay the forty acres of corn society 

 would frown her down as an Ama- 

 zon, The woman who goes at bee- 

 keeping as the half of female 

 domestics go at housework, or as 

 one-half of well-born daughters go 

 at their various ways of disguising 

 idleness, can do nothing else but 

 fail. 



Some invalids can get a few bees, 

 and, by healthful work in the open 

 air, build up their health while they 

 are building up their apiary ; but 

 nothing but a ruinous failure could 

 come of the attempt to run a large 

 apiary at once — unless the alleged 

 invalid had somewhere, either ac- 



tive or* latent, a large capacity for 

 work. Invalids that suffer seriously 

 when exposed to hot sun, or in any 

 way subject to overheating of the 

 blood had better let bee-keeping 

 alone. A man who is going to 

 run a hundred colonies of bees 

 through the swarming season needs 

 be a regular salamander, almost 

 as much so as if he were a puddler 

 of iron, or a steamboat fireman. A 

 little rebate may be granted here. 

 Nothing herein contained is intend- 

 ed to forbid a confirmed invalid, or 

 any other man or woman, from 

 keeping a few bees, and supplying 

 their own table with honey. 



Clergymen are subject to the 

 same restraint as to a vocation that 

 women are. Parishioners would 

 kick up such a row about the matter 

 that walking-papers would have to 

 be made out if the pastor should 

 mend boats, or keep a grocery. 

 Excepting work with the pen scarce 

 anything could be named that 

 would provoke so little opposition 

 as bee-keeping — but no lazy folks 

 need apply. At any rate, unless 

 the support be very inadequate, 

 and the need of more income quite 

 urgent, a pastor should usually be 

 content with a small apiary. A 

 little change of thought and its 

 accompanying exercise in the open 

 air will not injure the quality of 

 the Sunday's sermon, but improve 

 it. Really, fellow mortals, let us 

 pity the sorrows of the poor cler- 

 gymen — required to dress and 

 live like $5,000 a year, while 

 receiving $300 and a donation of 

 the cold victual sort. 



In thus affirming that bee-keep- 



