VOL. LVIII— NO. 2 



HAMILTON, ILL., FEBRUARY, 1918 



MONTHLY, $1.00 A YFAR 



ON THE SUPPLY MAKER'S TRAIL 



No. 1.— Making Hives and Sections 



BY FRANK C. PELLETT 



THE boss down at the office is al- 

 ways thinking up something 

 new to keep the staff corre- 

 spondent busy. When the mail man 

 comes I find it is always well to have 

 my hat handy, for there is no telling 

 where he will be sending me next. 

 Xot long ago he got the idea that 

 maybe the read- 

 ers" of the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal 

 might be interest- 

 ed in knowing 

 how bee supplies 

 are made. He ac- 

 cordingly wrote to 

 me to see what I 

 could find out about 

 the making of bee- 

 hives, smokers, ex- 

 tractors, honey 

 containers and a 

 few other things of 

 use to the bee- 

 keeper. The idea 

 was all right, and 

 I started in very 

 dutifully to see 

 what there was to 

 be seen around the 

 different factories. 

 But neither the 

 boss, nor I either, 

 for that matter, 

 counted on some 

 of the plans of the 

 women folks at 

 our house. Oh, yes, 

 I heard the wife 

 and her unmarried 

 sister whispering 

 mysteriously about 



gowns and preachers and other 

 things that have to do with wed- 

 dings, but I was entirely too much 

 interested in finding out how bee 

 supplies are made to pay much at- 

 tention to what they were doing. 

 Now. when a fellow starts out to in- 



vestigate anything having to do with 

 bees, he can never tell how long he 

 will be gone. These' good women 

 folks felt very sure that I would get 

 around in plenty of time, since I was 

 not going so very far anyway. Well, 

 after two or three weeks they got 

 uneasy for fear that I would stray off 



HUNDREDS OF CARS OF LUMBER ARE MADE INTO HTVES 



hive under an apple tree in some 



time to spare, but I did not get much 

 more than half way around the circle 

 of finding out how bee supplies are 

 made. After the girl was safely mar- 

 ried and started off in the automo- 

 bile with old shoes and other useful 

 decorations tied on behind (yes, it is 

 the same girl that we had on the 

 front cover among 

 the flowers in No- 

 vember, 1915), I 

 began to wonder 

 how much I had 

 really learned 

 about how bee 

 supplies are made. 



Some of the big 

 machines used at 

 some of the fac- 

 tories do so many 

 things that I never 

 could quite under- 

 stand it all, even 

 when I was look- 

 ing at them with a 

 guide at my elbow 

 to explain the 

 whole thing. Not 

 being much on me- 

 chanics anyway, I 

 fear that what I 

 did not learn on 

 the subjects as- 

 signed me would 

 make longer 

 stories than the 

 things I did. 



When one 

 watches the bees 

 busily working at 

 the entrance of a 



and not get home in time for the 

 party which they had in mind, so 

 they began to follow me up with 

 urgent messages, to the effect that 

 my presence was very much desired 

 at home. Anyway, I got home in 

 time for the wedding, with not much 



body's back yard, he is inclined to 

 think of honey production as a 

 small business. But when he gets 

 into the big factories, where hun- 

 dreds of men are hustling to turn 

 carloads of lumber into hives, sec- 



