THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



281 



cover, cleatcd at the ends, and allowed 

 to be glued down perfectly tight, and the 

 rear end of the hive elevated about two 

 inches. I wovild not give two cent.s to 

 have such a colony insured. The bees 

 should invariably be let alone till the fol- 

 lowing spring. When spring ar''ives we 

 should bend our energies and make 

 preparations for the early crop. All our 

 strong colonies will probably need 

 two boxes; our niediutn ones will need 

 one. Our weak colonies will only get in 

 goo<l trim for basswood. When the earlj' 

 harvest is past we should take all the sec- 

 tions, and extract from the unfinished 

 ones, as poplar is a dark honey and 

 should be harvested to itself. We now 

 get ready for the white flow from bass- 

 wood and sourwood, which will probably 

 last about twenty days, and our harvest 

 will be past. 



Dark Ridge, X. C, August 10, 1900. 



OME IXFLrKNXE OF LO- 

 CALITY. BY W. A. H. GIL- 

 STRAP. 



Kd. Review — In the July Re- 

 view you ask for articles on the influence 

 that locality has on apiculture. It is 

 evident that you want only a few point- 

 ers; fo«-, to give an exhaustive treatise on 

 the subject, would render it necessary to 

 attach a modifying clause to nearly all 

 literature pertaining to bees. 



At first thought it appeared that Editor 

 Hill was the right man to write on the 

 subject, but he may be too busy looking 

 at the country and running bees some- 

 where. But, in a country like California, 

 which is a large Palestine — an epitome of 

 the world — it is unnecessary to go farther 

 to see that localities differ much in char- 

 acter, capabilities and necessary plans of 

 management. 



A honey producer once wrote to a bee 

 paper that queen excluders should be 

 kept in use throughout the honey season, 

 when producing extracted honey; and 



said it was not a question of "locality," 

 as he had demonstrated in several States, 

 California included. It was very clear to 

 me that in the San Joaquin Valley, the 

 central part of this State, he would soon 

 quit the use of excluders, as advocated in 

 his article, for the loss by their use would 

 be considerable every year. A man now 

 in this valley says that queen excluders 

 were a great help in the sage country, 

 but here he cannot use them, as the flow 

 is usually light at the start, and the bees 

 will not carry the honey up through the 

 excluder as they should, but store in the 

 brood nest. 



Where sage is the main source it is fre- 

 quently desirable to get colonies strong 

 early in April. "The early bird catches 

 the worm. ' ' Where our surplus is from 

 alfalfa, the middle or last of June is 

 plenty early enough for colonies to reach 

 full strength. In many localities the 

 honey flow is preceded by a "starving 

 spell" of two or four weeks, and this fol- 

 lows a spring flow which is strong enough 

 to promote swarming, but not sufficient 

 for surplus. This year I made a correct 

 prediction of little or no swarming on ac- 

 count of the season being so far advanced 

 that the spring flowers would be gone be- 

 fore colonies could get strong. 



The question of comb versus extracted 

 honey production is mainly one of 

 locality. In a locality of dark honey and 

 remoteness from market few would 

 handle sections. If the honey is very- 

 dark, a pretty steady flow, and near 

 transportation lines, the question opens 

 about ([ueen rearing instead of even ex 

 tracted honey. Of course, it is hardly 

 conceivable that a successful queen 

 breeder would sell no honey, but my 

 reference is to his main eflforts. 



The question of locality is of more con- 

 seciuence in disposing of the crop than 

 many suppose. That one reason bars us 

 from receiving as much for our honey in 

 California as would be considered a fair 

 price in the East. As I am located, it is 

 • better for me to consign my honey than 

 to dispose of it in any other way. In 



