24 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



In a country like California or Arizona, where ttie weather is usually dry but 

 not excessively hot, and the bee pasturage (mostly alfalfa) not only very abund- 

 ant, but kept constantly in vigorous condition by irrigation, as there is but little 

 rain to wash the nectar out of the flowers, the flow of honey is extremely regular 

 all the eeason, from early spring to late fall, and the aggregate yield is remarkably 

 large. These countries for honey production have justly earned the enviable repu- 

 tation of being as good as any, if not the greatest in the world. While this honey 

 is all right in appearance, being about as white as any, it is not so rich in flavor 

 nor so thick as that of some other localities. The richest honey with which I am 

 familiar is made from the flowers of a weed called Spanish-needle, and is of a deep 

 golden color, and so thick that it can scarcely be made to flow, and so rich that but 

 few people can eat more than a very small amount without clogging the stomach. 

 All the clovers are rich in honey of excellent quality and mild flavor. The flowers 

 of the basswood tree are also rich in honey, as also those ot buckwheat, but while 

 the yield of the latter is large the quality is about the poorest known. About all 

 the fruit flowers are hich in honey of a good quality, but they are not numerous 

 enough to cut much of a figure as compared with the clovers for large apiaries, as 

 the latter are so much more abundant, except perhaps in some rare localities. 



The yield of honey in any country is very much aff'ected by the method of 

 management— whether the honey is sold in the combs just as it was stored in the 

 surplus honey-boxes (known as comb honey), or whether the honey is removed 

 from the combs as fast as the cells are sealed over by the bees, as then it is in con- 

 dition to keep. This is done by rotating the combs (after the caps are removed 

 from the cells) in a machine called an extractor. It is then stored in self-sealing 

 glass jars, and sold as " extracted honey " The former brings a much better price, 

 as the quality is better and the honey thicker and more apt to keep. The latter is 

 more liable to sour, as many bee-keepers, in their zeal to get the honey, extract it 

 before all the cells are sealed, leaving it more watery. 8ometimes such honey is 

 adulterated. For these reasons, and perhaps others, the extracted article is not so 

 popular and brings less. Yet, there is still quite a margin in favor of extracting, 

 as the quantity stored by a given number of hives is so much greater than that of 

 comb honey. This is because the wax of which the combs are made is evolved 

 from honey in a very peculiar way in scales on the outside of the abdomen of the 

 bee, somewhat analogous to«che formation of tallow on the inside of the ox; and 

 it has been ascertained by experiment that it takes about twenty pounds of honey 

 to make one pound of new empty combs (one pound of wax). This would be quite 

 a large bulk of combs, as tbey are very light. 



When developing wax, the bees are gorged to surfeiting and remain quiet in 

 the warmest part of the hive ; so it not only requires a large consumption of honey, 

 but requires a large force of workers to keep up the required heat and produce the 

 wax and build the combs, that could otherwise be employed in collecting honey. 

 Hence, it is very plain that when empty combs are furnished to the bees as fast as 

 they can fill them, they not only save the honey that it takes to build them, but 

 they are able to furnish a much larger force in the honey-fields. 



Napoleon said. " The secret of success in war is in having heavy battalions in 

 the right place at the right time.'' If this is true in warfare, it is equally so in the 

 honey harvest. Bees can never be induced to build combs any faster than they 

 can gather honey to fill them. So when honey is very abundant, much precious 

 time is lost if there are no combs ready until they can be built, and as ihete seasons 

 are frequently short, the best opportunity is generally gone before much is accom- 

 plished. Where a stock of empty combs is kept on hand by the apiarian and fur- 



