1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



127 



They force the pace, and seek to ac- 

 celerate the energies and desires of 

 the queen for ovipositing. Jog trot 

 procedure is not for them, even the 

 speed of an express train is too slow, 

 and they wish to hurry on at the 

 rate of an aeroplane. If seasons 

 were always good, if supplies were 

 always available, if queens could last 

 forever, this would be an ideal pro- 

 cedure — perhaps. But seasons are 

 variable, the flow of nectar uncer- 

 tain, and so checks, hindrances, de- 

 terrent influences, intervene, making 

 frequently the last state of the stimu- 

 lated stock worse than the first. The 

 colony attains the crest of the wave 

 at too early a date, the big battalions 

 reach the maximum before nectar is 

 to be had in anything like a copious 

 flow. If there is any one golden rule 

 in apiculture more valuable than any 

 other it is this: Bees should be at 

 their strongest just when the flow is 

 at its best. The two should synchro- 

 nize as to time. A week too early or 

 too late may mean that the bees have 

 missed that tide which, taken at the 

 flood, leads on to success. 



I am not personally a strong advo- 

 cate of either of these extremes. I 

 certainly don't belong to the stimu- 

 lative party, but I would not strongly 

 advise to let the bees severely alone. 

 Rather seek for and find the golden 

 mean between the two extremes. 

 Bees are all the better for the guid- 

 ing hand of their owners in spring, 

 then perhaps more than at any other 

 season of the year. The iron hand in 

 the velvet glove may be too harsh a 

 simile, the moral suasion which 

 guides and directs without manifest- 

 ing its presence might be better. 

 Early, very early, discover if the bees 

 are all alive, if stores are holding out, 

 if breeding is in satisfactory prog- 

 ress, if the interior guarantees the 

 community is warm and dry. 



Few will dispute that the less agi- 

 tation created early in the spring, 

 the better it will be for the welfare 

 of the community; but when milder 

 days arrive, when honey is available 



even in driblets, one can safely ex- 

 pedite matters gently and steadily, 

 both in and out of the hive. Inside a 

 slight scratching or piercing of comb- 

 cappings, near the brood-nest, occa- 

 sionally leads the bees to think that 

 they have a supply of easily available 

 stores to keep the queen laying 

 steadily. Outside, a supply of arti- 

 ficial pollen will still further encour- 

 age brood-rearing. This works for 

 good and not evil. There is practi- 

 cally little or no sudden rousing of 

 the bees, little disintegrating of the 

 cluster, little disturbance of the 

 brood area. Bees near the bleeding 

 honey quietly transport it to the 

 combs frequented by the nurse bees 

 and they stoke the queen, not un- 

 duly, and so bring on brood-rearing. 



No hard and fast lines can be laid 

 down. What applies to one man does 

 not apply to another. What applies 

 to one season only partly applies to 

 another. In particular, what applies 

 to one altitude, or degree of latitude, 

 must be modified and varied when 

 applied to another. Herein lies a 

 fertile source for discussion of this 

 thorny subject, the best way of 

 bringing bees safely through early 

 spring. 



Banff, Scotland. 



Gassed Soldiers Raising Bees 



By J. W. Harting 



BEE raising offers to the gassed 

 soldier or the man broken in 

 health from the hardships of 

 trench warfare a profitable occupa- 

 tion. Based on an original gift of 20 

 hives by the American Red Cross, bee 

 raising as an employment for soldiers 

 recovering from wounds or fever, is 

 being developed in the vicinity of 

 Verdun, where reconstruction is re- 

 ceiving expert consideration. The 

 gift was made to M. Grillon, the 

 sous-prefect of Verdun. 



The Friends' unit of the American 

 Red Cross, which is doing this spe- 

 cific work, hopes that in a few 



months it will have enough bees for 

 everyone who kept bees before the 

 war. The Friends are also helping 

 to run dairy farms, hospital and 

 health exhibits and have put up 

 refugee barracks. They have cre- 

 ated communal gardens and are ar- 

 ranging to equip the farmers who are 

 beginning to return to their land. A 

 central base has been established on 

 the farm of La Grange-le-Comte 

 and there is being developed at 

 Vanault-les-Dames, in the Marne sec- 

 tion, a stock-raising farm where 

 chickens, rabbits and pigs are being 

 raised and where some sheep, horses 

 and cows are also being kept for fu- 

 ture distribution in the Argonne re- 

 gion. 



The work of raising bees conforms 

 well to the needs of the man unfit for 

 the heavier agricultural work, and 

 therefore every encouragement is be- 

 ing given the industry by the Red 

 Cross. 



The Dignity of Beekeeping 



By Mrs. Armstrong Allen 



PEOPLE who live in cities easily 

 acquire habits. (Living there my- 

 self, I know.) People who live 

 outside of cities have habits, too, but 

 being quite different, they can 

 scarcely be used to point the same 

 moral or adorn the same tale. The 

 particular habit haunting this par- 

 ticular beekeeper today is charac- 

 teristic of a large, though possibly 

 decreasing, class in cities and towns. 

 If it is decreasing, the happy change 

 is doubtless due to the war, the one 

 great recent maker and breaker of 

 habits. 



Only too long it has been the way 

 of business men to smile at the men- 

 tion of rural pursuits, country occu- 

 pations. Some smile broadly, openly, 

 frankly, and often in friendly wise — 

 yet they smile. Others smile ever so 

 slightly, with just their eyes perhaps, 

 or the ends of their lips — maybe only 

 one end — still they smile. While still 

 others, eyes and lips more careful 

 servants, may show no sign at all — 

 yet they, too, smile, inside. Farmers 

 and gardeners, dairymen, poultrymen 

 and beekeepers, have felt this, and 

 resented it, for generations. I re- 

 member having heard a man of edu- 

 cation and scientifi; training, a 

 teacher of chemistry, speak of it — Dr. 

 J. S. Ward, for several years our 

 State inspector. "It makes me three- 

 thirds mad," was what he said one 

 day at a beekeepers' meeting, "it 

 actually makes me three-thirds mad 

 to see the look some people get on 

 when I speak of beekeeping." It was 

 that same smile — that same city 

 habit. 



Yet. after all, there is nothing more 

 serious back of it all than a super- 

 ficial misapprehension, a little lack 

 of information. The man who, when 

 beekeeping is mentioned, puts on a 

 look that makes the educated bee- 

 keeper three-thirds mad, just does 

 not understand the status of bee- 

 keeping. We who do can well afford 

 just to smile back — a different kind 

 of smile. For beekeeping is not a 

 cheap or crude or insignificant thing 



