AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



429 



and roaring above those boxes, waiting 

 their turn, as It were, for a dip into that 

 flour. 



Meantime, such a fanning of wings 

 has blown the flour into a great white 

 circle all around the boxes/ This is jolly. 

 You never saw happier or more eager 

 bees, and as for good nature, why an 

 everyday, common house fly is not a 

 circumstance. 



By and by your neighbors come and 

 ask why you were throwing flour on 

 their bees' backs, and you, in return, 

 ask them why they allow all their scrub 

 stock to steal into your private pre- 

 serves, and carry off half the rye flour 

 you had set out for your own colonies. 



Then, come on the days of fruit 

 bloom, when your own orchards — and 

 those of your neighbors — are like feath- 

 ery drifts of snow, touched and tipped 

 with the rosy fingers of the dawn, and 

 every little wayside plum tree is a poem 

 in white. 



How you have watched the bursting 

 bloom, how solicitous you have been 

 lest rains come up, or cold winds blow, 

 and when Old Probabilities does give you 

 just the warm, sunny days that you 

 want, how the joyous hum of the bees 

 fills the air, and the honey the empty 

 cells. 



If the bees were well fed early in the 

 season — and I believe just as much in 

 feeding bees as in feeding cows — there 

 will soon be hives overflowing with both 

 honey and young bees. You go out, 

 now in the soft sunshine, putting on 

 surplus cases, opening up the entrances, 

 and dilly-dallying generally around 

 among those bee-hives. 



This is delightful. This is the sunny 

 side, surely, and we may safely set this 

 down as one of the " lights " of bee- 

 keeping. The bees are very happy, and 

 so are you. 



The next morning, about 10 o'clock, 

 you hear a roar, and dropping every- 

 thing else, you sort of work over toward 

 that sound. Yes, just as you expected, 

 there is a swarm out. 



Now, if you are like me, you have 

 your queen's wing clipped, so all you 

 have to do, is to take your old hive 

 away, substitute another, head the queen 

 into it, and there you are, smiling, cool, 

 serene, and happy in another colony of 

 bees. This, to me, is one of the decided 

 "lights" — high-lights, in fact — of the 

 business. 



But, here is the companion picture : 

 Aboat eight days later you hear another 

 roar, and rush out to find the second 

 swarm coming out of that same hive. 

 You watch them, and perhaps you 



throw some water up among them, which 

 does not seem to bother them any, and 

 they keep on criss-crossing each other, 

 weaving a. web in diamond pattern big 

 enough to cover a farm, so it seems to 

 you as you stand gazing up through it, 

 and then slowly they begin to settle — on 

 the very highest branch of the tallest 

 tree in the yard. 



You get a ladder, and after infinite 

 pains and puffing, find it does not go 

 more than a fourth of the way up to the 

 cluster, which is growing larger and 

 larger every moment. 



There is the hive waiting for the 

 swarm ; there is the swarm at the top 

 of the tree ; and there you are at the 

 bottom. What are you going to do 

 about it? This, to me, is one of the 

 shadows — dense, impenetrable — for the 

 swarm always goes off and leaves me 

 standing there alone. 



But this very subject of clipping the 

 queens' wings, oh, I know just which 

 authority does, and which does not 

 agree with me — oh, I mean, disagree, 

 principally, with me — but yet, in spite 

 of it all, I will clip the wing. You have 

 all heard of the boy who had got to get 

 the ground-hog, whether there was or 

 was not one in the hole. Well, clipping 

 the wing is a sort of a ground-hog case 

 with me. 



If you cannot climb trees, you must 

 see that your queen is equally disabled, 

 or lose your swarms. And this same 

 clipping business has its lights and 

 shadows also. 



On a sunny morning, while honey from 

 fruit bloom is coming in freely, if you 

 open your hive, lift frame after frame, 

 and having found your queen, ask your 

 assistant to hold the frame while you 

 pick off the queen and snip her wing, 

 and, replacing the frame, close your 

 hive with a swelling sense of satisfac- 

 tion, then you have seen the sunny side 

 of wing clipping. 



If, however, you wait just a day too 

 late, until the uproarous bees, intoxi- 

 cated with the flow of honey that has set 

 them wild for the last few days, but has 

 now ceased, are out on regular foraging 

 parties, ready to waylay and rob every 

 one or any one, and you then get your 

 hive open, your frame containing your 

 queen out, and being alone, you begin 

 to chase from side to side of that frame 

 after the most lively queen you ever 

 happened to see, and suddenly, as you 

 notice that the thermometer must be 

 96^ in the shade, while it is, at least, 

 110^ under the bee-veil, just then you 

 hear the shrill buzz of a pioneer robber, 

 as he hovers an instant above your head, 



