This section is from the book "Bees For Pleasure And Profit", by Samson G. Gordon. Also available from Amazon: Bees for pleasure and profit; a guide to the manipulation of bees, the production of honey, and the general management of the apiary..
I have often hived them bareheaded and gloveless, using only the smoker, and did not get a sting.
My husband had been traveling for a few years before we were married, and had about decided he would not engage in bee-keeping again, and so took up the poultry business; but the end of four years of hard work found us moneyless and almost hopeless, when a sister in his church whom, years before, he had instructed and encouraged in bee lore, until she got a large crop of honey, insisted upon giving us two colonies which we gladly re ceived, and so I began at the bottom with him until we now have 40 colonies. At first we lost many every winter; but now as we fix them, packed in clover chaff on summer stands, we feel that we have overcome that trouble, as we have not lost a swarm for three years.
When he sent for some Italian queens I was curious to know what they were like. They came in the little cage, with attendants and supply of candy, and came in the mail too. Then the introducing! how easy it all is when you know how! First, remove the old queen and leave them about two days until they know they are queenless; then place the cage on top of the frames; remove the cork, and the bees will release her and adopt her into the hive as their queen. She will soon begin to lay eggs, several hundred in a day.
I wanted to get a look at them every day. First the eggs were a mere white speck in each cell of the brood-comb. Soon you would see a tiny worm which grew until it almost filled the cell. There were bees designed to feed them, then others to cap the cells over, and in twenty-one days after the tiny white egg was mid the bees would push themselves through and out where attendants awaited them to care for them until they were able to care for themselves.
I was more than interested when, one afternoon, the little fellows, all yellow and gold, came out for their first flight; and from that time on I have been learning to care for bees. I can light the smoker, and go to the hive, open it, and take out a frame of brood covered with bees, as you see me holding, look for the queen, and find her too; note the progress of the brood, without the least fear. Just keep a cool head and all will be well. People will pass along the road and look and look; and whenever I speak of working with bees the first thing is, "Don't they sting you?"
We have a good honey trade. People come from all around for our honey, and they seem to prefer the square section, as it is just enough for a plateful and is there anything that will look more inviting when we have company than some white clover honey? I have about given up making jelly and preserves. We never tire of honey, and our friends expect honey,-something they don't have at home. It never occurs to them that they could have it too, with very little work of the right kina at the right time. True, there is a busy season of some three months; but the rest of the year they require little time to care for them. But is there anything in this world we can get free of charge but turns out worthless in the end?
If you decide to keep bees, don't for an instant think anything will do for a hive. Begin right, with a good strain of bees. Send to the A. I. Root Co. for a hive complete, and their ABC of Bee Culture. It will cost you more in the beginning, but it is far cheaper in the end. I would advise a beginner to begin at the bottom, with only a few. Study them and their ways. Watch them the first warm days of spring on their return flight, bringing in the pollen as the first buds begin to open, which serves as food for the young bees. They now begin cleaning house, and will have nothing useless about. We put a paper in the super, with some honey on it for them to clean up, which they did, and removed the paper bit by bit out in front of the hive, so you can see them removing dead bees or any other thing not useful to them, working like so many people. Indeed, it is a miniature city with all its industry and thrift, but without its corruption, immorality and saloons. Each bee has its own occupation. The queen lays the eggs; others feed the bees; others clean up; others gather honey; each and every one has a purpose; and if any fail to perform it they are killed and carried from the midst.
I feel like a robber when taking the honey from them, seeing how hard they worked to gather it.
People will remark when they see our honey, "Did the bees make it?" I answer, "My! dear! no! The Lord made it and made the bees to gather it-taught them each and every thing, and they do it in the way they were made to do. We can learn much by following after them."
But my object in writing this is not so much the habits of the bee, but as a minister's wife handling them for pleasure and profit, and to convince the gentler sex that bees are not the fearful things so many make them out to be. I have read in Gleanings in Bee Culture of a strain of bees being imported which you can scoop up by the handfuls; stroke them on their backs, etc., and not get a sting. I don't just know how that can be unless they are made without stings.
So many country girls today, when they find themselves thrown upon their own resources for a living start for the city the first thing to learn typewriting, dress-making, or standing behind the counter enduring all manner of hard and unpleasant things. Being shut up in a stuffy room all day with typewriter and a man, it seems to me, would soon send a sweet pure girl fresh from the country to destruction, both body and soul. They think they can't be anything in the country, and there they can look better dressed, and go the rounds, even if it does unfit them for the place of wife and mother in the home.
The field of beedom in open to and within the reach of any or all, and offers a fair living, with independence and safety.
We got over a thousand pounds of honey this year, and sold it all here at home, and could have sold as much more at our own price.
Mrs. Frank McGlade.
Pataskala, Ohio.
 
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