22 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Bee-Keeping <1^ Rra Women 



Conducted by Miss Emma M. Wilson. Mareneo. 111. 



Thirty-five Years of Service 



Volume 58 of the American Bee 

 Tournal begins with this number. 

 Fifty-seven years have brought a 

 succession of editors, beginning with 

 the great Samuel Wagner, its 

 founder, through his son, Geo. S. 

 Wagner. W. 1". Clarke, Thos. G. New- 

 man and Geo. W. York, to the pres- 

 ent management. 



In continuity of service and ex- 

 treme devotion to the self-assigned 

 task none can equal the record of 

 Miss Mattie C. Godfrey, whose 

 photograph we reproduce. 



Miss Godfrey has been compositor 

 for the American Bee Journal con- 

 tinuously for 35 years. During this 



MISS MATTIE GODFREY 



time practically all the material used 

 in the Journal has been set up by her. 

 We have the word of former editors, 

 and we can vouch for it ourselves, 

 that the major credit for absence of 

 typographical errors in the columns 

 of the American Bee Journal during 

 this period can be directly traced to 

 her. Her proofs have always been 

 extremely clean and her judgment in 

 revising doubtful copy very accurate. 

 Although it was with a feeling of 

 regret that we accepted her resigna- 

 tion, which takes effect immediately, 

 she has certainly earned her retire- 

 ment. Such devotion t" duty should 

 have a greater reward than is in the 

 power of the American Bee Journal 

 to bestow. We know that we can 

 combine the appreciation of all our 

 our own 

 in extending >od wishes for 



many years to come to the one who 

 has been so faithful to the American 

 Bee Journal. 



My Bees 



Read at the Iowa Convention by 

 Mrs. Clara T. Noel. 



I am one of the little beekeepers. 

 My apiary has never numbered 40 

 colonies, yet my enthusiasm is not to 

 be measured by my size or the num- 

 ber of colonies I operate. 



My interest in bees began in the 

 early seventies, when my honored 

 father, a retired farmer, became in- 

 terested in bees and made them his 

 special study. He had the idea of 

 movable frames and for his own 

 amusement made hives of various 

 shapes, but always with movable 

 frames. I was his assistant and com- 

 panion in operating an apiary located 

 in the woods along the Des Moines 

 river, where basswood was plentiful. 

 This apiary consisted of a large num- 

 ber of log gums and boxes filled with 

 bees that the owner had long neg- 

 lected. My father and I transferred 

 these into movable frame hives for a 

 consideration. The long days that 1 

 operated the smoker and the many 

 queens I helped to find that they 

 might be clipped, my father transferr- 

 ing, uniting, robbing as he thought 

 best, gave me my first experience in 

 beekeeping. 



It is only in the last dozen years 

 that my love for bees has had an op- 

 portunity to indulge itself and to put 

 in practice the lessons I learned in 

 early girlhood. A colony of bees 

 came into my possession in a modern, 

 up-to-date hive, in June, when white 

 clover was in bloom, and the pas- 

 tures and roadsides were as white as 

 if carpeted with snow — that swarm, 

 the beginning of my apiary, gathered 

 over 100 pounds of beautiful white 

 clover honey that season Since then 

 I have had much pleasure, some profit 

 and many stings in my beekeeping 

 experience. 



My apiary grew very slowly, but it 

 was always self-supporting, supply- 

 ing the home table with choice honey. 

 I used up-to-date hives, building a 

 substantial bee-house for storage and 

 work. The last few years there has 

 been an income that I call "my trav- 

 eling fund." Through its existence a 

 few years ago I was enabled to make 

 a visit to some of my children liv- 

 ing in the far West. In giving part- 

 ing instructions to the girls who were 

 to care for the home during my ab- 

 sence, one asked, "What, about your 

 bees?' What must be done to them?" 

 Knowing they were never known to 

 molest them in any way, I felt safe 

 in saying: "You may have for your 

 own all the honey you take off and 

 sell." Many supers were on and the 

 white clover harvest was in full 

 swing. After a delightful trip 

 through California's fine valleys, over 

 snow-capped mountains, a day and 

 night ride on the ocean, home by 

 way of Glacier Park and Montana's 



January 



wonderful wheat fields, I found my 

 bees had been tampered with and ap- 

 peared in a decidedly disordered con- 

 dition. After a little questioning I 

 found those girls had robbed my bees 

 of over 100 pounds of choice white 

 clover comb honey, although they 

 had said they would rather face the 

 German guns than my bees. While 1 

 wear neither veil nor gloves, those 

 girls went mother one better and 

 went forth to conquer with low- 

 necked and short-sleeved dresses. 

 They daintily used the smoker and 

 hurriedly took off the supers and 

 rushed them to a place of safety, bees 

 and all. The astonished bees did not 

 at once protest, but soon other 

 sounds than laughter came from 

 those girls. Brothers came hurriedly 

 to the rescue, but beat a hasty re- 

 treat, even the sedate father disap- 

 peared around the buildings in un- 

 dignified haste. The hired man and 

 the dog came in for a share of fiery 

 darts. Not until dark did those bees 

 desert their stores. The next day, 

 with swollen hands and disfigured 

 faces, those girls prepared their plun- 

 der for market. But they said 

 "Never again will we play a joke on 

 mother through the agency of her 

 bees." The hired man would eat no 

 honey while he staid with us, and 

 the dog to this day disappears when 

 the smoker starts. 



I have been stung many times, but 

 not always by the bees. Once I 

 bought a red clover queen and had 

 visions of gathering all the honey 

 for miles around, but instead, her 

 workers cared little to fill honey sec- 

 tions with any kind of honey; they 

 swarmed early and late and poorly 

 prepared for the winter. 



Oh the talking it took to convince 

 the irate woman who said the bees 

 were ruining her grapes; they were 

 all my bees, because they all had 

 "Clara T." on their wings. You bee- 

 keepers know how hard it is to con- 

 vince some people that the bees were 

 saving what had been laid waste by 

 other insects and birds. 



I never could control swarming, but 

 one year an article in one of the bee 

 journals said "Swarms always settle 

 a certain number of feet from the 

 hive before taking their long flight. 

 I believe it was fifty feet. I was de- 

 lighted No more swarms should get 

 away from me. But the writer did 

 not say in what direction those fifty 

 Feel would be. My prime swarm set- 

 tled fifty feet from the hive all right. 

 but straigiit up to the swaying branch 

 o) a ta 11 :1 sl, tree, where I found it 

 impossible to get them. Just why so 

 many swarms chose that particular 

 place I do not know, but practically 

 every swarm went to the same sway- 

 ing branch, just fifty feet away. 



When white clover blooms, I do not 

 enjoy the Ladies' Aid nor the Mis- 

 v Society as a good member 

 should. When a paper is being rwg 

 describing the good work in India 

 or South Africa. I have caught my 

 self wondering if by any chance I had 



overlooked a queen-cell in No. 1U, or 



hoping No. 6 q could wait till tomor- 

 row for another super, or if the 

 clipped golden queen would be lost 



