33 FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



supers, or any fixtures that may be needed. As these things 

 are bought mostly in the flat, the chief part of the work is nail- 

 ing, and it is a great convenience to have the different kinds 

 of nails in their proper places ready for immediate use. A 

 set of nail-boxes, part of which are seen in Fig. 110, serves 

 the purpose excellently. The boxes are patterned somewhat 

 after a tin nail-box I saw at a tin-shop. When a box is taken 

 from its nail on the wall, laid flat and slightly shaken, the 

 aails are easily picked up from the shallow part of the box. 



Truth compels me to say that so many different persons 

 find it convenient to use these boxes and inconvenient to re- 

 bum them, that of late the boxes are not always found in their 

 proper places, and when the picture was taken they were 

 assembled for that special occasion. 



Most of the winter time, however, is occupied with, read- 

 ing and writing. There are some thirty' or forty bee journals 

 to be read, and a large part of them are printed in the German 

 and French languages. I am a poor scholar in either German 

 or French, so it is not strange if I sometimes get behind in my 

 reading, to brdiig up in winter. I wish I could find the time 

 to read over again at my leisure in winter all the bee journals 

 that I read more or less hurriedly in summer. But I never 

 find the time. I used to think that if I ever lived to be fifty 

 years old I would take things very leisurely. But I am now 

 past fifty, and I never was more crowded in my life before. 



WRITING FOR THE BEE JOURNALS. 



Besides the reading, there is the writing. Some extra 

 writing usually to be done each winter, besides the regular 

 work in that line. I have written "Stray Straws" for Glean- 

 ings in Bee Culture ever since December, 1890, and four years 

 later I began writing answers to questions in the American 

 Bee Journal. The thought of keeping up that work year in 

 and year out, with never a vacation, summer or winter, would 

 be somewhat wearisome if it were not that I delight in the 

 work. If any one of my readers should hesitate about send- 

 ing to me any question connected with beekeeping because of 

 the thought that it will be unpleasant to me, let him disabuse 

 his mind of any such thought. The receipt of such questions 

 is a real pleasure. 



