718 



GLEANINCJS IN BEE CULTURE 



Nov. 15 



CALIFORNIA AS A BEE^^COUNTRY. 



Some Slovenly Methods; No Danger of Over- 

 stocking. 



BY B. M. GIBSON. 



Mr. Root: — In your editorial, Oct. 1, you 

 give the bee-keeping industry of California 

 a black eye. Let us see if there is not a sil- 

 ver lining to the dark cloud. To start with, 

 I will say I have no bees for sale; but I have 

 an offer for all I have, and the one who 

 made the offer got me to promise that, if I 

 should conclude to sell at some future time, 

 I would give him a chance to buy them. I 

 have also had several other offers. I write 

 this so no one will think I am trying to get 

 some free advertising. Bees in this section 

 are the most salable of any thing I know of, 

 notwithstanding the failure we have just 

 had. They bring from three to five dollars 

 in any old hive, and without the purchaser 

 knowing the age of the queens. Those who 

 have ranches to sell try to get bees to facili- 

 tate the sale of them. This would indicate 

 that the bee industry is not at so low an ebb 

 as some might suppose. 



Yes, we have failures; but I have yet to 

 hear of the country where they do not have 

 them. The failure this year was considered 

 one of the worst, and yet I extracted 10,640 

 lbs. of honey besides leaving at least 3000 

 lbs. in the supers for a special purpose which 

 I may write about after another year of ex- 

 perimenting. There were scores of bee-keep- 

 ers who did not get a pound of honey; but 

 it was not the fault of the season nor of the 

 bees. There are bee-keepers outside of this 

 State who would consider the above amount 

 quite a decent crop in a good year. Any 

 thing below one case (120 lbs.) is considered 

 a failure here. There are years when we get 

 less; but it is doubtful if we get less than 

 that amount more frequently than failures 

 occur in other sections, for all countries are 

 subject to occasional drouths, and too much 

 rain is also detrimental. I have seen it rain 

 in different parts of the East for two weeks 

 at a time without a day's cessation, just at 

 the time the bees ought to be doing their 

 best work. 



It reminds me of what a man told me 

 about Oregon not long ago. He said it rain- 

 ed up there all the time. It rained without 

 any sense. 



The cause of our worst failures here is the 

 lack of late rains. About the time our sur- 

 plus-honey flow begins, the weather has be- 

 come settled, and there are no storms to in- 

 terfere with the bees working, and they hum 

 from daylight till dark. This is one rea*<on 

 we get such larye yields in good years. We 

 bee-keepers should be forehanded enough 

 so that we shall not have to sell all our crop 



in the flush years, but hold it over for such 

 years as this. They are sure to come, soon- 

 er or later, in all sections of the country, 

 and honey can be kept indefinitely without 

 waste or deterioration, and a large amount 

 in weight can be kept in a small space. 

 This would also help those to get better 

 prices who were obliged to sell. 



Bee-keepers here can take care of three 

 times as many bees with the same amount 

 of labor as they can in cold climates, for they 

 do not have to haul them from the out-api- 

 aries and lug them into cellars and return 

 them again in the spring, and they do not 

 have to swathe them in building-paper, 

 chaff, leaves, etc., if they are left on the 

 summer stands; and after all of this labor, 

 many, on opening them in the spring, find 

 half of them dead and the other half in a 

 weakened condition. Most bee-keepers here 

 do not even take off the supers during the 

 winter months, and, in fact, the bees com- 

 mence to build up in January, and quite 

 often in December. Bees that are lelt in 

 October with plenty of stores, a good queen 

 not over two years old, and a good hive, 

 will, twenty-nine times out of thirty, be 

 found doing well in February. 



Then there is the comfort of the bee-keep- 

 er to be taken into consideration, which is 

 a big item to me, for there is much more 

 pleasure in going out any day when the sun 

 shines, and hear the bees humming, than 

 there is in having to bundle up every time 

 one wants to step outside, wade through the 1 

 snow, and hurry back near the fire for fear \ 

 of getting his nose frozen. Bee-keepers can 

 work with their bees here practically all the 

 year round. 



1 am certainly surprised that any one 

 fears that this country is going to be over- 

 run with bee-keepers on account of the 

 writings of Mrs. Acklin. For my part I 

 should be glad to see some bee-keepers come 

 in who intend to make it their special busi- 

 ness, and who have some knowledge of the 

 work, or at It-ast would try to learn to pro- 

 duce well-ripened and clean honey, and take 

 the place of those who have gunny-sack rat- 

 holes which they call honey-houses. It 

 would help instead of being a detriment to 

 the business. 



I would just as soon have rats and mice 

 running over the dishes in the pantry as to 

 have them running over the utensils in the 

 extracting-room. I do not wish to convey 

 the idea that bee-keepers are any more un- 

 tidy than the butcher, baker, or grocer who 

 handles the things we eat; but I think it 

 would do no harm to be more tidy than 

 some of them, for the minister's wife said 

 some of the family were sent to the store 

 early one morning for sugar, and the grocer 

 had to shoo the cat out of the sugar-barrel. 

 No doubt she had slept there all night. 



A man ate supper with me last evening 

 who said the people where he had been 

 boarding bought a can of honey from a near- 

 by bee-keeper, and he poured a little on his 

 plate at meal time and got five dead bees 

 on his plate. If Mrs. Acklin's writings will 



