Katherine Day Part 9

  Part Nine

A Beekeeper's Story, as Told By Artist, Modern Day Homesteader, Katherine Day

By Ted and Suzanne Currie
     "Anyone who is fond of colour knows how hard it is to stick to that rule, but restraint in the matter of colour always pays its way." Katherine Day, from her unpublished text on the methods of hooked rug designs.
     There is now, without doubt, a detectible, pleasant moodiness of season, inspired by both the landscape and the clouds rolling by in a deep blue sea of sky. A moodiness that subtly haunts this beautiful area of Ontario's Simcoe County. It is an atmosphere that inspires the voyeur, and encourages gad abouts like my travels today, exploring the country lanes, concession lines, and footpaths like the ones Katherine Day used to travel to and from her home at Hawthornes, on what is now the Horseshoe Valley Road. It beckons one to embrace adventure, and wax poetic, at times, about the good graces of the harvest season, and a wonderful place to call home. If even for a short visit, it becomes so familiar, and strangely nostalgic, as the autumn season inspires, that one feels it has suddenly become part of our lives, never to be forgotten. Katherine Day, as many other writers and artists who resided in this same region, felt the allure of Oro-Medonte, and how greatly she benefitted from her location chosen for Hawthornes, and then, later, Pax Cottage, built to her design, just down the road.
     "It seems to me that I have tried the patience of these poor bees almost past the point of endurance. Why they don't eat up and leave me, I don't know. I think it must be that there are plenty of blossoms around, for they certainly cannot be personally attached to anyone who has persecuted them with such persistent and unwelcome attention as I. I cannot bear to think of the things I have done hoping to please them. I find a record of having divided the poor hive, to prevent them from swarming. A few days later they swarmed. A Queen is essential in a hive, and when you divide you must take care that she is in the new hive. And to find a Queen is a job for an expert. The first year I had bees, I had every confidence that their interests were safe in my hands. Now after three years, I am not so sure. At any rate, I know by now that I just cannot take out one of the middle sections, swarming with bees, and say confidently, 'Well, there is the Queen!' I have only seen her once. She was worth looking at, being slender, long and graceful. A truly gracious creature. But only once have I been so lucky as to cast an eye on her."
     Katherine Day actually wrote this editorial piece, circa 1936, much as if she was preparing to develop the material into a book, for public consumption, about the joys and perils of having "A Home in the Country". In fact, this was launched a year before Kenneth Wells, and his wife Lucille Oille, moved to the Oro-Medonte region of Simcoe County, which of course heralded the famous "Owl Pen," series of books, about homesteading in contemporary times. A sort of back to nature actuality, and the Toronto Telegram writer, made quite a name for himself penning stories about the good times and bad, trying to eke out a living, from a working farmstead in the Canadian tradition. Katherine Day's actual handwritten journal from her home known as Hawthornes, wasn't commenced until the spring of 1941, but it carries on with what she originally began in 1936. A time by the way, when she was still considering her career in art, which changed dramatically in 1939, shortly after a joint-exhibition with her teacher-mentor, Nicolas Eekman, a well known European artist. The exhibition was not given rave reviews, and she may have decided, after this, to focus her art more on illustration for publications, than carry on like her mentor, hosting numerous solo exhibitions. Here again, is Katherine Day, lamenting about the joy and sorrow of raising bees, an art form in itself.
     "Only one piece of interference I have found to have a gratifying result. After the winter, I took a clean hive and put the poor starved hive into it, section by section. The bees were in much too exhausted a state to make any protest, when the dead bees were swept off the comb, and the live ones clinging to it were placed in the new, clean hive. A beekeeper of my acquaintance keeps, for just such emergencies, of exhausted hives, a few full combs from the previous season. But the plain fact is that the bees must be left with much more honey than you think they are going to need for the winter, or they will come through so impoverished in strength and numbers that it will take them most of the season recovering, and they will not gather enough honey to fill the honey-comb sections."
     Under the heading, "Swarming Tactics" Katherine Day writes, "First, the business of gathering in a swarm that has settled on the furthest branch of an old apple tree, which has never been pruned. I leave to personal experience. It is almost indescribable. Especially when visitors come expecting to be shown through the new house, just as this same, very unpruned branch, with reach once attained, has irritated a particular part of your anatomy, fifteen or so feet above the ground; and you dare not express your deepest, most profound feelings, for fear of alarming the dog, the puppy, prone to getting excited by sudden occurrences and strange noises. Like chasing birds and barking at assorted creatures lodged on these same branches, like I was, that day. The bees, clustered on these branches, need to be treated with great calmness on our part as outsiders.
     "You may well ask what I was doing fifteen feet above ground, up a tree. I asked myself that question several times both going and returning, in fact, at every snag on the way up and out, there were more questions. There are, you see, two methods of persuading a swarm of bees to take up their abode in a hive of your own offering. One suggested by a woman who had made a considerable success of beekeeping, and apparently always used efficiently by her, was to saw off the branch on which the swarm was clustered. And then lay the severed branch down gently (very gently and slowly), in front of the hive. So gently that the bees would not be at all disturbed in their ritual, but would come gradually out of the ceremony of swarming, see the new home, accept it gladly as if heaven-provided, crawl in, and get right to work. It sounded like an Arcadian nature myth, truer than truth itself. I decided to try it on the first opportunity.
     "The other method of collecting the swarm was a practical one which I had seen demonstrated in my youth, by my father (Isaac) who was an extremely agile man. As the bees usually settled on the apple tree in the orchard, a garden rake carefully adjusted brought them down with one swift jerk, to the newspapers spread on the ground beneath, before the new hive. Then you ran for dear life to a point previously selected with no intervening obstacles. My enthusiasm for the first, the Arcadian method, to me fifteen feet up into the old apple tree, carrying the pruning saw. But faced with a humming, crawling, brown mass of creatures, each provided with the capability to administer a punishing sting, and me solidly wedged in a net of branches, immovable, or only movable at the cost of great pain. I began to see that the second method had its points. By this time the human visitors had arrived. Fortunately they knew nothing of beekeeping and were unable to give me any advice, but unfortunately, they thought I must surely know a great deal about it, or I should not be in such a daring proximity to the fierce creatures. And they expected a demonstration of skill. While contemplating the seething mass, saw in hand, I had wondered what my luck would be, if I tied a cord around the branch the swarm was lodged on, sawed the branch off, and gently lowered it down to the ground, to a position just in front of the hive. The drawback to this was, that the bees might not get the drift of my meaning.
     "There were other drawbacks, easily imagined, dealing with my own rigidity of position and the mobility of the bees. The arrival of the guests terminated the experiment. I decided to take my guests indoors, out of sight, just in case something went wrong with the plan, and provided them instead with a picture-book so that my techniques would be unobserved. I told them how dangerous bees were when they swarmed, and how poisonous stings were to some people, and they retired with further urging. As as matter of fact, bees are usually so preoccupied with the ceremony of swarming, that they never sting unless you annoy them by getting in their way.
     "With my guests out of sight, I contrived with the aid of a step-ladder, and a long rake, to give the swarm a jerk down on to the sheet spread in front of the new hive. Then remembering home technique, I fled the scene. When no more outraged bees were following me, I walked around the other way into the house. After the guests were gone, having surveyed my handiwork at a distance, they seemed satisfied I knew what I was doing as a beekeeper. They (the bees), must have gone straight into the hive, because there wasn't a bee in sight. I crept up respectfully to the hive. The reason we had seen no bees flying about in the vicinity, of the tall apple tree, was that they were all clustered on a branch of a lower apple tree close by, in another perfect swarm formation. This time I abandoned the gentle technique of laying the bough on the ground. I applied the rake and the foot race, and the hive by good fortune, was soon full of exploring bees who remained there, looking after the needs of the brood-frame I had filched from the hive they had just left. They will never abandon a brood-frame, which is just as well.
     "I let the hive remain there all summer. When we finally removed it, this time it was into the barn for the winter. A slat was lightly nailed over the opening the evening before moving, so that all the bees were inside. Then the next day, the hive was safely carried in, and a few hours later, the slat removed and a board leaned up against the entrance instead. This meant that they could get out if they liked, but in dashing out they would hit their little heads against the board, reconsider a bit to see what it was all about, and thus memorize like a bee can, their new surroundings. Otherwise, bees flying away from a hive in a strange place, are likely to return to the former place, where the hive used to be situated, and so become lost."
     Now the beekeeper's take on "The Honey Harvest."
     "As soon in spring as the weather moderates above the freezing point, when the snow is off the ground, and the grass is beginning to turn a more vivid green, it seems to be a safe time to put the bees out. Each summer I think I have found an ideal spot for them, and when it is impossible to move them with the weight of the hive, I might discover that some blighting wind or some blistering sun will, if not corrected, hurt them badly. This year they are as well protected from the west and the north as I can arrange, tucked into a little grove of Balm of Gilead trees, a fragrant setting and I believe a useful one, for they use the balm for propolis. This is the gummy substance with which they (the bees) glue tight every crevice. They hate crevices, and fill every available vacancy. If you leave them half an inch, they make a comb to fill the space. My dearest plan at present is to grow a heavy hedge running west to east. Norway Spruce at the back and Tartarian Honeysuckle at the front, and against this lovely fragrant background to place the bees. It was only planted this spring, so that the interval of waiting for it to grow will have to be spent by the bees in the Balm of Gilead grove. But that is very pleasant. The new hedge runs from the grove straight across the field behind the orchard, and behind the hedge are planted with young basswood trees.
     "They have to be cared for, these bees. They must have shelter, warmth, and food in the winter. Protection from the sun and the wind in the summer, clean hives to gather in their honey and raise their brood. And in return for a little fare and kindness they give you back nectar from the flowers of summer, enclosed in hermetically sealed packages. When they have nicely started their spring honey gathering, they are given a neat little trayful of empty square sections, some four or so inches across. Down the middle goes a fine paper-like piece of wax, marked out in bee-fashion in hexagons. On this they build on each side, their little wells; fill them to the brim with the nectar of the basswood, the clover, the honeysuckle, and then neatly seal them up. So complete is it, that to harvest the crop, all one needs is a dull knife to clear off the propolis, with which the bees neatly glue one wood-bound section to another, then the section is ready to be wrapped-up in cellophane for keeping, or placed in a carton for selling.
     "The bees are not particularly difficult to deal with, when you are removing their honey. Choose a good day, not wet, when they will all be at home, nor blazing with heat, when they will be cross, but a fine day that will take most of them away honey-gathering, before the Goldenrod is in bloom. They hate a jerky, frightened person to touch them, and this person they will sting as often as they can during an encounter. But take them away, lift up the cover of the hive and give them a gentle flow of smoke from the 'smoker', not so blazing hot that their wings are scorched. Give them a minute or two in order to clear safely into the lower story, then pry up their heavy frames with two tools, one to leave in one end, while you pry up the other end. Working steadily, with a bee veil over your head and neck, for protection, and gloves on your hands, so that no little police-bee can stab you unawares; and with the smoker always at hand, to stupify them while you brush the fliers off the frame, onto the ground, you are not likely, therefore, to get stung. By and by you become immune to bee-stings and you hardly notice them after awhile. They are said to be good for rheumatism. I believe bees become used to the clothes a person wears, and prefer you, their keeper, to stick to the same outfit, so that they may identify you more readily. One beekeeper, on coming home from town one day, smartly clad in a new straw hat, heard his bees swarming, and rushed to the scene in his town clothes. He was used to handling them gloveless and hatless. They would have none of him, attacked him viciously, and drove him off in a panic. He tried again with no success. When he was driven clean into the house by the infuriated creatures, he took the time to change into his customary work clothes. And then the bees took no notice of him, letting him prepare a hive, gather them in and house them, mild as a June day. Which perhaps it was, on account of the straw hat.
     "The first mild day of winter, the bees will come singing out of their hives for a dance in the sun; when pussy willows are out, the bees will fly away into the clear air and if you watch them return, you will see their legs covered with yellow or orange pollen. Long before the apple blossoms are out they are storing honey in their empties, probably from some tree blossoms, or from dandelions. Not many blossoms are out in early May. The latter half of the month brings the plum blossoms, the wild cherry, the apple, the hawthorn, the lilac, and from then on, their days must be delirious with sweetness. All the sweet flowers of the garden, all the flowering shrubs are full of nectar. Then the basswood, most sweet of all the trees, and the white clover on the ground. These are the commonest honey producers. There can be no more delicious honey. But all honey is delicious. Once in Picadilly (while in London, England) I went into Fortnum and Mason's to get a jar of heather honey of which I had heard so much. I saw a great pile of most beautiful jars, filled with amber honey from palest yellow to clearest chestnut brown. The clerk said they had honey from all over the world; from India and Switzerland, Spain and Palestine, seventy kinds of honey. And the names of them, orange blossom, jasmine, cyclamen, peppermint flower. They had heather honey. It had a strong taste, rather like our buckwheat honey. But then on the continent and in England they like the dark-coloured honeys; they think there is more flavour to them. I heard of a beekeeper here, in Ontario, who could not sell his buckwheat honey at home but he secured a market for it in Holland, a couple of carloads of it, and got a rousing good price for it. It is a wonderful food, this honey we get so cheaply in Canada. It costs us here about ten cents a pound, and upwards of twenty-five cents for a section of honey-comb. Abroad you pay three times that amount, and it is considered a luxury.
     "It is a very ancient craft, this keeping of bees. There are many legends connected with it, and they all seem to harp on the same theme; the love of peace and harmony in the bee colony. You must tell the bees that the master of the house is dead, and that you are the new master. Bees will not sting where hatred is obvious. In olden times, I think bees must have had a rather thin time when their honey was gathered from them. Sometimes they were actually burned out, and their entire crop stolen from them. Sometimes smoked out. But there seems to have been a general idea that what the bees had collected for themselves for winter, was the property of whoever could get it from him. What they did without food was no person's concern. It was a wonder that the bee population did not disappear, like our passenger pigeons. But then the bee has a weapon which the passenger pigeon lacked, hence no doubt their survival. Besides, if a swarm does not like the idea of going into the hive provided for it, up it goes into the air, and takes to the wild wood. A great many basswood trees seem to provide a bee-tree home for them. A good many verandas and attics have provided a home for them too, until they were ejected. An Irish girl told me that once a swarm of bees settled in their attic in a difficult location to remove, and there they stayed and collected honey. They happened to be located over the maid's bedroom, and she used to get quite annoyed at the honey dropping down on their bed from the ceiling. A little old lady who has a syringa bush nearby thinks that perhaps my bees are greatly in her debt for the honey they consume from her flowers. But most emphatically she would not kill one of them, not she. She would not hurt dear little bees because of all the good they do in nature. They might shelter in her Lilies from the rain and stay as long as they wish. I thanked her for her hospitality, and forbearance, but i did not tell her that a healthy colony has eighty thousand bees to a hive."
     Please join me again tomorrow, for Chapter Ten, of our biographical glimpse, of Canadian Artist, and modern day homesteader, Katherine Day, of Oro-Medonte.