Honey Bees, Birch Sap and Candy

MEMOIR Honey Bees, Birch Sap and Candy______ Sidney Saylor Farr Dad, Grandpa and several of my uncles each kept five or six hives of bees. Most of Dad's hives were homemade except for one pretty blue one; it looked so elegant and out of place sitting there in the row. I have often wished that I had asked him where he ever got such a pretty thing as that blue hive. Black gum trees are almost always hollow near the ground and can be made into excellent bee gums. Dad would cut a black gum and saw the trunk into appropriate lengths. Then he would hollow out the pieces, using a long chisel to round out and smooth down the insides. After this was done he bored four holes, one at each point of the compass , and put two sticks horizontally through the gum, at right angles to each other, the ends of the sticks resting in the holes. These sticks were the supports from which bees could suspend their brood combs. The bees always chose the top half of the gum for their honey, suspending the combs from the head set on top of the bee gum. Dad put a flat head on first and then slanted a lid above the first to keep rain from running into the gum. He set the bee gums on a raised platform several inches off the ground. Last of all he cut a small half-circle (somewhat like mouse holes in comic strips and the animated, "Tom & Jerry") in the bottom edge, thus making an entryway for the bees. I have read that one of the more important and ancient foods in the wilds was honey. The English brought the honeybee to America in the early 1600s. The settlers took colonies of bees with them as they moved west, and swarms escaped, returning to the wilderness, from whence they had been captured thousands of years before. If you found a bee tree, even if it was on someone else's land, and you marked it, it was yours. Of course you had to get permission from the landowner to cut the tree. When any of the Saylor men found a bee tree they cut two parallel vertical slashes in the bark. This mark let anyone else in the community know the Saylors had claimed this tree. Since most of the mountains where we lived was "company land," Dad did not have to get permission. Bees begin to swarm around the first of April. If they swarm in late June, they will not have time nec85 essary to collect enough honey to see them through the winter. To fill new bee gums, Dad would go "coursing" the wild bees. He put corncobs soaked in honey in a cleared spot in the woods, sat down nearby and waited for the bees to find the bait. Soon dozens of bees were attracted to the spot. When they rose up to fly home he noted the direction and followed. It might take several baits placed out before he could find the bee tree. Dad cut bee trees early in the spring when there was plenty of blossom from which they could make new honey. The day before this targeted time he would carry a new bee gum and set it in place near the tree. Early the next day he and his helper (who was me, when I got big enough) carried a cross-cut saw, axe, and a tub or large bucket in which to place the honey from the tree. Dad would notch the tree to get it to fall in a certain direction. After the tree fell, using a bee-smoker, in which he burned old rags to make clouds of smoke, he puffed billows of smoke around, which would make the bees settle. He also wore a mask and gloves as protection , although I did not think the bees would sting him. Dad remarked that bees could tell if a person was afraid; I tried not to be afraid but never quite succeeded; sometimes I did get stung. Dad brought the bee gum and positioned it near the fallen tree. If a...