Douglas daily dispatch., 1927-12-18
OLIVER TWISTS OF THE HIVE
BY CHARLES F. WILLIS

Il see where a feller in California
has been takin' bees around on a
motor truck SOS to give EN- chance
to get good honey pickin when the
home fields was worn out said the
hired man.
II was the kind of person that
writes letters, I'd warn him agin 1t.
But he'll find out pretty soon that it
only means trouble SO I really amt
got no call to waste money on a
postage stamp.
He may think his idee is new. but
it amt. thought of it myself 20
years or more ago, when l was
Workin' farm out in Westchester on
lease. / didn't take out no patent on
the scheme, although thought there
was millions in it when started
When / got through I didn't want
no patent on it.
I'VE didn't have no motor trucks
in them days, but we had farm
wagons, and you could build a plat
form on them that would hold 80 or
40 hives. My bees had been doing
poorly all season, what with the rain
that spilled the buckwheat, and the
hogs gettin' into the clover patch,
and the locust's getting blighted and
not blosSonlin' the way they ought to
of done.
OF course a bee is an enterpriSing
creature. He will keep goin' till ne
finds honey if any is to be had
Mine never got discouraged when they
see there wasn't much chance to get.
any around my place. They Just went
wanderin' around from one farm to
another. But conditions was pretty
much alike in the whole districk, and
at night they would come home
plumb beat out and stagger into the
hive to get a little sleep so they
could start off in a new direction at
sun up. It was sorry for the little
fellers. They done their best, but
pretty soon they got plumb discour-
aged, and would just sit in swarm
on top of the hive and look despair
ingly off at the horizon as ii to say:
Whats the USE
well, knew there would be a
honey shortage around the county in
the fall, and that prices would be
high. I hadn't done much with the
other crops on account of the bad
season, SO thought out a plan OF
gettin' honey Down the road about
IS miles was the agricultural college,
and it had big experimental farm
with all sorts OF stuff CROWN on it.
Hayin' plenty of money to keep away
the pests, and to replant when a
crop went sour all their fields was
plumb heavy with blossoms OF one
kind and another.
II thought if only T could train
me bees to go over there, they'd be
sure to come home loaded down. But
there amt no way to train a bee
that ever heard of, and I didn't
know how to begin. Droppin' flowers
along the road in lunches about a
quarter of mile apart didn't do no
good. The bees would just go to the
first two or three lunches, load up
on the honey and come back. They
was too worn out with long distance
flynn to want to try any more OF it,
sSThen it come to me that it I was
to take them to the honey, like this
here Egyptian fellow Mohamet went
to the mountain, they would be able
to do all the flynn necessary and fill
the hive in jig time.
so got out the wagon, loaded "a
couple dozen hives into it, and started
out the next morning just before day.
break for the college farm. OF course
didn't dast stop in the road, but
pulled up in little grove not far
xryI1n NoxY nj
took out the plugs had wedged into
the doors of the hive.
''Well you ought to see how tickled
them bees was when they smelled the
flowers at close range. They just all
shot off at once in straight line Tor
the nearest clover and buckWheat
fields. They stayed SO long at first
that was scared they had all gone
home on me instead OF comm back,
but in about an hour the first one
zoomed in with his legs all covered
with pollen and begged down with
the honey he was carryin Then
come another and another until all
the doors of all the hives was black
with 'em.
They didn't lose no time around
the hives, neither. They just tossed
their loads to the bees that had stayed
inside to act as showers, and come
right out agin for another trip. BY
2 o'clock in the afternoon I could see
that my plan was a big success, and.
was slappin' myself on the back to
think what thinkin' will do Tor a
feller.
"And then things began to start.
You see, regular bees amt SO busy
as they look. They take lot OF
time to the job, and if they are
scared off one flower they go to an
other, and fill up on that, and don't
show no fight. The only time they
sting under the conditions OF nature
is when you pinch one of them or
act as if you was going to hurt him,
or break into his hive.
"But these bees, as I said at the
start, was just famine stricken, not
had a square meal for two months,
to say nothing of gettin' the honey
their instincts had learned them to