Evening Star Newspaper, October 4, 1925, Page 89

ILLUSTRATED FEATURES MAGAZINE SECTION Ohe Sunty St FICTION AND HUMOR Part 5—8 Pages WASHINGTOY, D, C.; SUNDAY « MORNING, OCTOBER 4, 1925 ' Washingtofi Workers Find Spare-Time Profits in Beekeeping BY ( H. DACY. URING the business day they wear the garh and official dig- nity of Government experts, scientists and spec s men who by vears of faithful service have won important places in the Sam family— but after office hours and on holiday will find them wearing the headdress of heekeeping, smoker in hand, just ready to open up unother commercial beehive. Within a short radius of the White House and the zero milestone a half dozen amateur heekeepers are ope ing commercial apia which com prise approximately 350 colonies and peak population of 20.000,000 bu: Ttalian honey bee Most of these men are developing their interesting bee farms as occupations for their sun- set years. or another in the future they we Uncle Sam’s service and to devote their full time attention to her hizhness, Qu Bee, and her multitudinons o indusirious Do not make & that the that their « day-dream : their honey wing more ORGE you ners =it in than men who ave n he than the b busy most of ns cit pastenn bee man < Hecti and it i The LT honey spare st I o this factotun on Te-barreled qssi cekeeping exten W days of time + taken o fling une tme or another, for ipiary meth homely sl et hie deseribes @ Lonied store, fiest having pu Thy lips and breath And waft the wre hand, 1 her year the teeming brood is horn rvests have they; when the Trwiee Two h star Spurns with her winged feet the oce And whei i fhizht before th Sha sinks from Heaven be This is Breaks bo A venom in ea Tmplant a hidden bark Their own fives (b T Winte canta therr Thy spirit-broke Fear not to smoke 1 hyme 1t ihe empty wrath n y when the he b sting and in thy veins eaving whind i n swarm's i And Tae bored 1 The sunbe Who' sit 1 Or son INOW. wh ..““z S Womatter . of today that nanufaciure Lone Wash wild flow e Moat ws did 2 x ibed by Ver from tion just cestors, %o adiniv Ell. keepin its centuries of but it still ha =olves all the pu Vor the Inmates of the hive, from the regal queen to the lowly worker and the lazy drone, are ¥'s priz guardian They have many rets, and they have kept them so weil that even today many of the routine doings ©f the bee family are unplumbed mys teries to creation’s most able apiarists and scientific invest Several Wash sponded 1o the Ture and are now the ow of suceessful apia do not tind these ties. But on and in the suburbs vou ston = Ay des hits 1 far s of the W bet it Jeehive tonians have honey mon, < and opers of ors motor honey about, for vou will sale ave located the aplaries ¢ 1l District heekee Another honey farmer keeps his one-halt mile bevond Bethesda on the ockville pike -t main highw vhich leads to the Middle West U Glen, not v from ke National 1k Seminary exsiul h A e ther head Guarters The directory Leepers, i (e would tain tural exper chinists, Government ticians and business men, for all of these practitioners of variegated call ings are at least homogeneous in their | love of bees and beekeeping. And| small wonder that the enthusiasts who | labor with bees fall prey to the in- Austry, efficiency and indomitable cour- age of these insects. For the beehive, with its inmate bees, is one of the most highly perfected manu ring ! plants in existence man, with all_his mecha and wutomatic ass no mod ern miracles which wclipse the achieve ments of the honer makers in p tng the world's most sanitary and de licious food N aplary it Washing choa v of of bee the na naval doc m ul val ma clerks, tis arvels P AMANN, an expert machin- | who been emploved in ¥ o has a apiary near Mr. a son of the of New Yorl . whe before him worke with ned w successiul com 1t ix just like fathe J .M st the Navy 0-colony Amann lev sectio his fathe bees and mair Al apiary. cases of The son has be to the National Capital for mo 17 For many farm was located where at on time he maintained wany as 93 colonies gnd approximate I 5,000,000 busy bees. Latterly he lias moved to the Bethesdi district | and plans to develop the one of | Washinston's best apiaries | Gradually he is eliminating the| black or German bee and Italian hee ! cross from his hives. The black bees are surly and ugly. They will sting on the slightest provocution. .. Italian bees are docile and quiet. The: sting only In_self-defense, when they are thoroughly convinced that their habitations are in jeopardy. So if vou can visualizé how you would feel with | thousands of mean-mannered bees | humming around vour head as you ! asked questions and made note of | answers, you will understand how the facts about Mr. Amann's apiary were ! obtained for publication. Yes, we| finally donned bee bonnets equipped with protective veils. e did not wish to be so disfigured that we would not be recognized when we returned home. The honey bee. as vou doubtless | know, can sting but once. Its punc turing spear, cilled a harbed dart by Vergil, penetrates vour flech. The stingeg is buried in the wo Deiny vears, than vears nis bee | remove it expeditious u Randle Highlands, | Be Devote Their Leisure to the Care of Honey Bees—Gain Pleasure and Profit From Their Sidelines—Honey Is the World's Purest Food—The Busy Bees Are the Pacemakers for Industry—Increase the Apple Crop and Manufacture Valuable Food From Flower Nectar—Community Method of Meeting Temperature Changes, ' at- | Steam heated Uncappiug Kuife in actior provided with pointed barbs like a f k, which make it difficult of extrac pumps poison from a the wound made by stinger. Quite commonly the puison suck and part of the 15 of the bee are torn during the stinging the stinger sminal o « insect Just as a decgpitated chicken flops about wildly through involuntary mus: -ular action after the head is removed, So the poison sack of the bee continues to function after it is pulled from th- bee. If a bee stings vou, you should seratch the tiny wound vigorously in order to ext t the stinger as soon as bossible. The wound will continue to \well for some time after the stinzer has centered in yvour flesh unless you This stinger teenth of an inch in effective as a hig ng vou pain and a The ordi Ttalian-honey not huzz around seeking It stings only when aroused The black or German ie ahout one-s lenzth, piledr nov does tronble. and excited I hee. on the other hand: is irritable and slightest d the, bee stings will die short sting on Once a it anxious 1o prove i(m.‘ loses its stinger thereafte * % % x NI honey season in the neighbo hood of Washington estends from il Day to July 1 During that the worker bees bring hone; - from the plants and 1o the hive, where they se: v in the cells of the delicately woven comb. Bees will transport the equivalent of their live weight in honey a di nee 2« great as three miles. Of course, the best results obtain where the nectar- rvesting crews do not have to fly rther than one-half a mile or one mile on their honey-scouting trips. The nectar as gathered is a watery liquid, which ripens, seasons and thickens during the period after it is stored in the bees’ confectionery shop. After August arrives the honey is ready for removal from the hives and commercial distribution. The flowers and plants from which (he busy bees harvest their mec govern the color of the hoi For example. dark honey in the Washing- ton district comes frem nectar of the tulip poplar trees, while lizht honey is from locust trees, clover fields and various fruit-tree blossoms. Dark honey customarily sells at a price than the light-colored extracted weet. The average colony of healthy bees under favorable conditions wiil produce about 50 pounds of surplus honey a season above the Winter it food for the colony. flowers, h vy lower | number of bees in the colony. vurse, varies greatly with the sea eak population during the height of the hone Hn may increa [ 100,000 bees, while during the Winter | period this same colony may not ex }1-»:1[ 5,000 o 0,000 overwintering insects nitary definitely. honey keeps almost in- s of honey were of interment in “King Out Wisconsin the State beekeepers point with pride to a certain sample of Badger State honey which is now about 60 | years old, and which is as delectable | today as it was when first produced. | The “adulteration of honey is almost 1 impossible under existent food laws | Uncle Sam has found only two or three real examples of honey adultera- | tion, despite that thousands of speci mens and samples have been exami ned and inspected latterly. Strange to {tell, invalids suffering from diabetes, who are prohibited the use of other varieties of sugar, are often able to eat pure honey—and henefit thereby. When you purchase pure honey, you may be sure that you are buying a foodstuff vhich in" purity and food values cannot be excelled: * o % * 15 Beechbank Apiary owned and operated by Iarold L. Kelly, an { employe of the Department, largest ¢ rm in i e Capital City. D on. Mr. Kelly will fin i h | r i nor Ladian bees. In_addition 1o cing hi colonies, Mr. Kelly is 0 in_charge of the apiary of Capt. . S. Nash, a retired medical officer of the United States Navy, which Is on Conduit road. Capt. h, subsequent to his retire- ment from the Navy several years ago, became interested in bee keeping and established a commercial aplary of 50 colonies in order to occupy his spare time. He became deeply interest- ed in bee culture, under the advisory assistance of the experts of the national bee farm at Somerset, Md. He per- formed all the active work associated with the maintenance of his apiary and had gained marked proficiency-in beekeeping and made a success of his project up to the time, several months ago. when local doctors or- dered him abroad and away from the climate of Washington for his health. Capt. Nash. before his departure, ranged with Mr. Kelly to mnage aplary on a share basis. Hareld Kelly keeps 25 colonies of his bees at Ednor, Md.. among the apple trees of the Luchnough Or- chards. He pavs no rent for his priv ilege, yet the arrangement is mutually advantageous both to the apple pro- ducers and the hee man. One of the wonder works of the minute honey la his than two tons of honey | | x | Smoking RALTLITE !;JJL;A‘\'\IALJ . ¥ | | | ers eliminates objectionable bubbles, and prevents the tenaclous material from forming when subsequently placed in jars and bottles. The merchantable product finally is sealed in the market containers. Last year, at the Mary- land State fair, Mr. Kelly was award- ed first prize on his exhibits of bees, honey and wax. At present, the Beechbank bees are preparing special comb honey for ex- hibition purposes. Yes, the bees are doing all the work themselves. Mr. Kelly made special stencils of card- board. He placed these stencils in certain honey frames in such a way that the bees, as they butld the comb, will inscribe the words, ‘‘Beechbani Aplary” in raised lefters in the honeycomb. Perhaps you have never heard prevoiusly of educated bees that are able to write their names in honey. * ok ok ok (QTHER successful beekeepers of the Washington district include Dr. S. A. Jones and R. E. Hile, who work for the Department of Agriculture dur- ing office hours and spend their spare time caring for their apfaries. J. R. Howdershell and Irvin Hoffman are other Washingtonians who are beekeeping enthusizsts. L. W. Baker of the Treasury Department is an amateur apiarist who has mastered, the management of bee colonies bys personal study and research. While housekeepers and homeow i in all parts of the District aret, stocking their bins with fuel for Win ter, the bustling bees will stick t# | their daily task of polishing the hon | comb | weather food supply. and storing away the cold- As firemen, the bees are more efficient than any ofl or coal burning furnaces. When Winter comes the bees form in clusters in the protected hive. To certain worker bees is delegated the task of furnish- ing heat. Others form in double rows round the border of the cluster and | act as insulators to keep the warmth | within and the cold outside of the W. M. AMANN. ! Suceessfull Bethesda Honey, Farmer. \\keeper alway cluster. By the movement of their bodies the bees at the center of the cluster develop heat. This heat spreads throughout the cluster and keeps the bees as snug and comfortable as though they were clad in woolens and furs. Fifty-seven degrees is the critical temperature—the danger point which always sets the hive furnace-tenders to work. Sometimes the temperature developed in the cluster rises to 85 ov 90 degrees. Many of the bees worl: themselves to death keeping the hive warm and cozy. The experienced bec protects his bees dur ing the cold Winter o as to minimiz { this expenditure of energy on the par | | i other section of the West. | built a high fence of the energetic bees. Arizona’s Wild ‘fiorscs. IFTEEN years ago more wild horses roamed the Canyon Diablu country of northern Arizona than anx When the price of horses made their capture profitable an outfit began operations in that section. The hunters built trap in which they captured hun- dreds of horses. The place was well adapted for the purpose. The men cross the narrow neck of a large poirt or peninsula surrounded on three sides by a deep canyon. It contained about five or six acres and was well concealed by the rub cedars that covered the country. | On the sides next to the canyon | fence was built to keep the capturel horses from rushing over the cliff. There was a big sorrel stallion that eluded the hunters for weeks. Several of his herds were trapped, but he always managed to get away some- how and in a short time he would appear at the head of another drove. | Finally the riders managed to drive | big horse circled him into the trap on this point. The the fence, vainly seeking an outlet. Not finding any, he evidently concluded that through the | entrance lay the only way to liberty, and, uttering a shrill whistle of defi- | ance, he suddenly charged the bars, which were eight feet high. When he reached the barrier he | never paused an instant, but with a mighty leap, the like of which no man | had ever seen before, he cleared the | top and dashed - $ Harold. Kelly,Treasury ewploy | e and Beekeepery. i = | | bee - consists in cross-pollinating de- ciduous fruit, so that the annual yield |is markedly increased. Such fruits as apples, cherries, pears, plums, prunes and almonds ure vastly | where they are produced in close prox- [imity to well populated beehives. i In the famous fruit-producing | gions of thé Far West and Pacific re the extraordinary industry of raising honey bees, which they Tent out to the neighboring orchardists. The fruit men understand the need of having bees in their orchards to act as pollen bearers from tree- to tree so that complete_fertilization may be facili- tated. By personal tests they have ascertained that the bees pay their board bills a hundred times over in the increased fruit crop. The critical time is the flowering period. That is the time when the bees accomplish modern miracles in adding to the income of the orchard- 1 s The beekeepers benefit in that | their bees are maintained under ideal conditions for the production of the | best grades of marketable honey. prune producer. {his 180-acre prune crop. Bees were |not hired that season as his most efficient helpers. The following vear, however, the grower arranged with an aplarist to keep 115 colonies of hees on his prune farm, The result was that | country many beekeepers specialize in | | the “prune crop was increased more than 100 tons over the previous yield. | Other production conditions were | 1. so that science has ascribed the crop to the cross-pollination of the bees Usually “tice is to place one colony of [bees in each acre of orchard or fruit | field. Another grower who had 7 acres of cherries, with 17 tons, raised his yield in_successive years to more than 50 tons a season by the addition of 10 colonies of honey bees. * ¥ X ¥ OME one has sald that the only way in which man can gain a liv ing by stealing, right under the very nose of the strictest policeman. is to kep bees. The winged fiyers roam over the neighboring countryside and rob flowers and fruit blooms of their honey nectar, irrespective of ownership. And when it comes ‘right down to a |avocation. During the the | | i coffee, while in regions bees are the farmers' assist- ants. Through its pollination aid the honey bee is responsible for most’ of the alsike clover, and vitally increases the red clover and sweet clover seed vields. The busy hees also pollinate the cotton plants in Dixieland. From the foregoing, you can ap preciate why Mr. Kelly has gone to the trouble of moving about one and one-half million bees from Forest Glen to the large apple orchard a dozen miles” distant, These bees pro- duce about 1,200, pounds of light col- ored honey annually, ‘while the colo- nies at Beechbank make ir the neigh- borhood of 2,800 pounds of sweets. Because he found it difficult to “shoo chickens into_their coops out of the rain,” Harold Kelly, who formerly handled hens as a side line at Claren- don, Va., turned to bees as a profitable eight _years point of ownership it would be difficult | that he has been engaged in the bee {to prove in any court that the bees |business, his enterprise has developed ireally ravage like ordinary robbers, |to a point where the insect manufac- | No matter how many trainloads of | turers now occupy every moment of {honey are exported from a certain their owner's spare time. At times, Take the instance of a California |State the natural resources of that|he has maintained as many as This man one yéar |section are not touched by such re.'colonies of bees and harvested marketed 344 tons of dried fruit from imoval. Really the bees add more to marketed more than five tons of honey and {the American fruit grower’s income |a vear. Those were the days when annually than the total amount re- ceived from wax. aid. wonderfully in ‘the pollination of the bees imposed to much on the the sale of honey and |sleeping hours of the Federal employe. -He was forced to reduce the size of Tn the coffes.producify lands hees|his bee farm. It was in 1919 that Mr. Kelly pur- buckwheat-growing | chased the Beechbank Apiary at iest Glen. It was then | had been developed by Miss Hannah { Sewell, who made a s of bee- keeping. When the size of the apiary became so large that it was difficuit | for Miss Sewell to handle all the work, she sold out to Mr. Kelly. He main tains a well equipped “honey hous: where the comb honey, after being removed from the hives, is extracted and prepared for ket. The honey frames, as they come from the bee- hive, are placed two at a time in a hand-power centrifugal extractor. By the turning of a crank on this ap: paratus a few whirls in each direction, the honey is wholly removed from the frames. Previous to this opera- tion, a speclal uncapping knife is used to cut away the wax seals which the bees have placed over each honey- comb cell. A steam-heated knife is used in cut- ting the caps from the comb honey. A rubber tube conveys steam from a small water boiler to the uncapping knife. It heats the blade sufficiently | so that it cuts through the honey as | easily as the ordinary table knife will cut solid butter. After the honey is uncapped and removed from the combs, it is heated in special water-jacket containers to the pasteurizing temperature of 145 0 degrees Fahrenheit. This pro- ng. makes the honey flow readily, or- owned and | €O bar, in the same trap. away right past a dozen men, none of whom lifted a hand to stop him, so great was their astonishment. During another drive the cowboys captured a big gray gelding, branded 2 He was a magnificent animal, and one of the cowboys volunteered to ride him. Three men rode into the corral and after an exciting chase a lariat was thrown over the proud head. Great was the surprise of all when the gray stopped perfectly still and allowed | himself to be led out fo a large flat nearby where the men broke horses. It was not even necessary to blind- fold him to throw the saddle on and cinch it tight. The man who had vol- unteered to ride knew hy the signs that he had picked an “outlaw.” but he did not weaken. He pulled off his chaps to allow more freedom of action and leaped into the saddle. That animal was a past master of all the tricks that have made “outlaw” horses famous the West over. He went straight up, his back bowed, and came down with legs stiff and all four l:e!’l bunched together, landing with a Jjar that would have unseated most riders, but the man on his back stuck pitched “fence and “swapped with a rapidity that was daz- zling, compelling the rider to “pull leathe to keep his seat. From the start it was a case of endurance and the horse won the battle by throwing the daring cowboy with a peculiar plunge upward and a twist that men never saw before.. Fortunately several men were on guard and two ropes dropped over his head before he could attack the pros- trate rider, for the gray was a aswi- killer, whose history was afterward learned from the CO bar men. Uncle Sar='a Islands. - It appears from Government re- ports that Uncle Sam owns just 8,000 slands. Ten million people inhabit these islands, and their commerce amounts to more than $300,000,000, which is beyond the commerce of the entire United States previous to the year 1850. One hundred million dol- lars’ worth of products are shipped to the United States from these islands every year, and about as much goes back to them from us. It is not yet 30 years since Porto Rico came under the rule of our Government. There was one schoolhouse on the island then; there are 2,000 today. The num- ber of pupils has grown from 25,000 to 200,000. Good roads have aiso been extended from 40 miles to more than a thousand miles. Sugar has increased from 65,000 to 400,000 tons a year. People said at the time Alaska was purchased from Russia, at a cost of $7,500,000, that the buy was a foolish one. But the canned salmon of a sin- gle vear alone from that territory now amounts to more than the original purchase of that vast land. For vears, the value of sealskins was annually ' about the same. And, as for gold, | everybody knows that many fort=nes have come out of Alaska. ‘sunfished”