Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women - Wise Acres Yearbook (Ambler, PA)

Page 14 text:

The new bee house will enable the students to do some work with the wax; for with a stove and hot water and a wax press, there should be plenty of wax to work with and to sell. Dipped candles and work basket ornaments, floor wax and furniture polish can easily be made. Neat little cakes of beeswax to sell to druggists or larger cakes to trade for bee supplies will make a very profitable sideline' to the sale of honey. To summarize the bee house needs, calls to one’s mind the poem beginning with this line “Man wants but little here below.” Below, in a list, will be seen a few of the bee house wants: An extractor, preferably one run by a gasoline engine. Working an extractor is very hot fatiguing work, and it comes at the hottest time of the year. A stove, for cold weather, and to provide hot water when needed. A sink with running water. Work benches. Drawers. Shelves. A place in which to keep the veils, gloves and aprons of the class. A tool chest. LETITIA E. WRIGHT, JR. 8

Page 13 text:

®lje |3r0paseii pee pause The members of this year’s bee keeping class who have worked so industriously and intelligently out in the school apiary, have probably had a greater stimulus before them than previous classes in the promise of a bee house. It might almost be called a honey house, as there all the extracting and bottling of honey will take place; but bee house seems the larger term since everything to do with the bees is kept there. “A place for everything and everything in its place.” What a change from former things when all supplies were kept in the cellar, stacked up and piled together, and much time was lost and patience put to trial, when there were hurried calls in the apiary, and what was needed could not be found. Then, too, think of the hard work wheeling 500 pounds of honey in heavy supers all the way from the apiary to the spring house where the extracting was done. The bottles were washed at the house and placed in a clothes basket on a wheelbarrow and wheeled down to the spring house; because, of course, to wash everything clean, one must have hot water and soap, not spring water. After the honey was extracted and bottled, the 500 bottles were placed in crates; and many a wheelbarrow load was taken to the Jam Kitchen, where the stickiness was removed by cloths dipped in very hot water. Then the labels were pasted on and the honey was ready for sale. Therefore, at extracting time, three different, and one might almost call them remote, localities at the School of Horticulture were upset, or at any rate, disturbed by the proceeding. Not to mention the line of bees that followed the wheelbarrow loads and sat outside the spring house door, which, in spite of the hot weather, had to be kept tightly closed. These same bees took gladly, one might almost say thankfully, to, the sticky bottles, and followed them on their trip to the Jam Kitchen; thus forming two lines dangerous to pass, as indeed, Joe, the Italian boy, and one of the maids can testify, as well as some of the students at work in their little gardens near the greenhouse. So a new era will open to the students of apiculture in which they will have a place where work can be done in the most approved and up to date fashion. The bee house must be bee proof or tightly screened, so as to eliminate all danger of robbing. It must be mouse proof or at least have receptacles to keep the extra combs safe from mice or wax moths, so that each year one third of the bees’ work of the previous summer will not be wasted. In the new bee house each student should have her work bench, where while constructing a hive, she may become familiar with its intricate parts. The work benches can be covered with white oil cloth, so that when the honey is extracted the bottles of honey can be neatly placed there to be wiped and labeled, or the empty bottles placed in a row to fill. The floor of the bee house should be of such material as can be washed out thoroughly; for honey, in spite of the greatest care, has a strong propensity to get on the floor. A cement or concrete floor could be well washed out and would prove a difficult barrier to the entrance of field mice. 7

Page 15 text:

IN MEMORIAM Whereas, an all-wise Providence has removed from our midst our friend, HAZEL ELIZABETH HENGEN Be it Resolved: That we, the members of the Undergraduate Association of the School of Horticulture, express our sorrow at the loss of our fellow-student and extend to her family our heartfelt sympathy in their bereavement; Be it further Resolved: That a copy of this resolution be entered upon the minutes of the Undergraduate Association this 25th day of January, 1917. Be it further Resolved: That a copy of this resolution be sent to her family. LUCY PARKE TAYLOR, President BEATRICE GEORGE, Secretary. 9