406 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



inhabi- 



hand ! 



is fifty 



MAETERLINK AS A HARVEST 

 HAND. 



Word has come to this country, by 

 way of London Times, that Maurice 

 Maeterlink, Belgium's charming poet, 

 who sings so beautifully of the "honey- 

 sweet hive and its humming 

 tants," has become a farm 

 Think of it! He says that he 

 years old, too old to be accepted on tlie 

 fighting corps, and as the crops needed 

 attention — harvesting and threshing — 

 he felt he must do something to aid 

 his beleaguered country. So forth he 

 fared to do yeoman service as a field 

 worker. Overcome by the horror of 

 the war, he says that he can not write 

 of it. Se says, "I have tried to write, 

 but I find it impossible. I began a 

 series of articles on the war, but noth- 

 ing has come of the effort. I feel so 

 restless all the tim.e." He added: 

 "The waste of it! To think, that after 

 men have battled so successfully 

 against disease and natural forces, 

 they should fall themselves before this 

 welter of carnage!" Even now, as a 

 relief from the carnage of war, we feel 

 sure his mind must turn as never be- 

 fore, with deep longing to the quiet, 

 peaceful hum of the bees amid the 

 heather — if indeed there be any 

 heather or bees remaining intact, in 

 that oppressed land, that is being so 

 ruthlessly trampled under the gory 

 heel of the God of War.— E. G. B. 



THE POLICY OF THE BEE- 

 KEEPERS' REVIEV/ DURING 1915. 



At the National Delegate meeting in 

 St. Louis last February, the policy of 

 the National relative to furnishing 

 members v/ith their beekeeping sup- 

 plies was fully discussed. If the 

 reader v/ill refer to the proposed 

 change in the Constitution of the Na- 

 tional Association published on an- 

 other page, it will be noticed that those 

 favoring the buying supplies for the 

 members were in the majority, for, 

 there is a clause to that effect included 

 in said proposed change. Likely two- 

 thirds of the delegates present favored 

 the National buying beekeepers' sup- 

 plies for the members, while the other 

 third did not relish the idea a little 

 bit. Knowing that the majority of the 

 delegates favored furnishing the mem- 

 bers with their supplies at the best ad- 

 vantage possible, why did not the As- 

 sociation take hold to this branch of 

 the work and push it! Think it is 



very easily explained, it was in defer- 

 ence of the minority. 



The writer is heartily in support of 

 helping the members in every way 

 possible, both in buying their supplies 

 at wholesale and, also in furnishing 

 them witli the best of reading procur- 

 able for the pages of the Review, in 

 fact, EVERY WAY POSSIBLE consis- 

 tent with what we have to do with. 

 Under the circumstances, it seems to 

 the writer that this is the only prac- 

 tical way of managing the National, 

 the wants of the members varying as 

 they do, is to furnish something for 

 all. Some members think that the 

 literary feature is all there ought to 

 be included in the National, others 

 care nothing about only the sale of 

 their honey, or the buying of their sup- 

 plies at a close price. Others want to 

 buy honey, and there you are! 



"LAZY MAN'S WAY" OP TRANS 

 FERRING. 



In the same letter as the above, Mr. 

 Croxen asks for a good, effective and 

 safe way to transfer bees, from old 

 combs in a mass, crooked, etc. He fears 

 "getting honey all around, inducing 

 robbing and killing bees" by the usual 

 methods. Well, the past summer we 

 tried what we call "Lazy Man's Way" 

 of transferring. It is or may not be 

 new, in all points; in fact, we are sure 

 some of the features have been indi- 

 cated before, by other bee men. Some 

 features, also, we believe are new. Any- 

 how, as a total, here is the method: 

 We first turned the old hive upside 

 down, and drove out the bees, as in 

 the usual methods of transferring; 

 then set this swarm aside, in the box 

 into which we had driven them. 



Then we set our new, modern hive 

 (with frames of comb), we would have 

 used foundation, had we not had the 

 combs on the old stand of the box hive. 

 We then placed a queen-excluding 

 honey board over the new hive, and on 

 it set the old box hive (either side up, 

 preferably right side up), right over 

 the honey board on our modern hive. 

 No need to make a close joint, unless 

 there is an absolute dearth of honey; 

 just wrap, if need be, an old burlap 

 sack about the joint, and cover any 

 exposed portion of tool of new hive 

 with a board. Then shake your driven 

 swarm out before the new hive, on 

 old stand, and watch them run in! In 

 three weeks we went to the hive, took 

 off the old hive, and found every cell 



