1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



163 



think, shows that the public does care for 

 adulteration. T. W. C. 



[Perhaps our readers may be greatly surprised 

 to see the heading above, when we, in our issue 

 of Jan. 15. declared that the discussion had 

 gone far enough, and would have to be closed, 

 and that, too, when we had rejected so many 

 articles from our friends, supporting our own 

 position. In our issue for Jan. 1.5, we had for- 

 gotten the fact that Mr. Cowan was referred to 

 by both Prof. Cook and ourselves as authority. 

 As he lives on the other side of the " big pond."' 

 and is, a part of the time, away from home, 

 many days would elapse before he would see 

 the discussion, and the matter wherein his 

 name as authority was involved. It would be 

 simply impossible for him to have replied in 

 our Jan. 15th issue: and it seems to us that it is 

 only a matter of justice and riglit to him that, 

 inasmuch as his name and book were referred 

 to in the discussions, he be allowed to explain 

 his position. The article is a most valuable 

 one, and we believe there is no higher authority 

 in all Europe, on the question at issue, than 

 Mr. Cowan. His statements in regai'd to 

 analysis, and the elements that make up true 

 floral honey, agree substantially with those of 

 Prof. Wiley at the Washington convention.] 



CALIFORNIA. 



IS IT A GOOD PLACE FOR A NOVICE TO COMJIENCE 

 BEE CULTURE ? ALSO SOMETHING IN RE- 

 GARD TO THE STATE OF LOUISIANA. 



"i seen a Pece what you had wrote in Bee 

 Gleanings about californy." etc. 



This, Mr. Editor, is a sample from one of the 

 many letters which I have received from would- 

 be immigrants from the East. After an intro- 

 ductory like the above will follow a thousand 

 and one questions, more or less, relative to bee- 

 keeping, fruit-growing, house rent, the cost of 

 furniture, wages, what kind of work is to be 

 had; and one man. after telling me all about 

 his children, wanted to know whether the cli- 

 mate was adapted to '" raising babies." 



The young man who wrote the letter inflict- 

 ing so many wounds upon Uncle Sam's English, 

 and with a quotation from which I begin this 

 letter, is, I am happy to state, not a bee-keeper, 

 but merely a lusty young laborer who happened 

 to stumble across a copy of Gleanings con- 

 taining a " Pece what you had wrote." I sent 

 him a postal card, stating he had better not 

 come hero, as we think so much of our State 

 that any man who would dare write California 

 with a little c would be lynched as soon as we 

 could get hold of him. 



I have answered most of these letters hereto- 

 fore: but after this one through Gleanings I 

 shall answer no more. 



Regarding the prospects for future prospei'ity 

 from embarking in the business of honey pro- 

 duction liere, I would state that, of those al- 

 ready here and engaged in the business, not 

 more than one in Hfty makes more than a poor 

 living at it. It may be our own fault, and I 

 rather think it is; but I do not believe the new- 

 comers will succeed any better than the old- 

 timers do. 



Our average crop is perhaps no larger than 

 the average crop east. All kinds of supplies, 

 except foundation, are higher in price here, 

 while the money we get per pound for our hon- 

 ey and per swarm for our increase is consider- 

 ably less than bee-keepers east get for the same 

 items. We can probably keep more colonies 

 advantageously in one location than can be 

 done in any of the Eastern States; but judging 

 from reports, I do not think we have any flow- 



ers which secrete honey in such abundance as 

 your basswood and clover do. On a sage-ranch 

 there are millions of blossoms, but each one 

 contains so minute a quantity of honey that it 

 takes a bee a long time to get a load. Mr. 

 Manum, of Vermont, reports a gain of his scale 

 hive of 33 pounds in a day. Mr. Mercer's re- 

 port of 18 pounds is the most I ever heard of 

 being gathered in one day here, and that is 7 

 pounds greater than any other California report 

 of which I know any thing. 



Once in Ave or six years we get a crop, the 

 bountifulness of which is perhaps greater than 

 you ever have east; but in such years the honey 

 is a drug upon the market — the world is flooded 

 with it, and I have seen our finest honey selling 

 for thiee cents a pound, only 4=3.60 a case, and 

 from that must be deducted the dollar which 

 the case cost. Take it all in all, I doubt wheth- 

 er bee-keeping is as profitable here as in the 

 East. For my own part, I have had my apiary 

 of .55 hives, in Louisiana, average over 200 

 pounds to the colony, while my best average in 

 California has been but 130 pounds, and that, 

 too, from a small apiary— only 80 hives. (I 

 have never had bees, however, in a good loca- 

 tion during a good season.) 



But as regards this question of profit; I think 

 it depends more upon the man than upon the 

 locality. If the bee-keeper is energetic and in- 

 telligent he will succeed east, or west; and if he 

 is lacking in these qualifications he will fail in 

 either place. 



One sees but little mention of Louisiana as a 

 State adapted to bee-keeping; yet it is among 

 the best. To my positive knowledge, some 

 twelve or fifteen years ago the Hon. Chas. Par- 

 lange, now Lieut. Governor of the State, and 

 then a young law student, made a $4000 crop in 

 one apiary. It was brains and energy that did 

 it. and the same qualifications have now raised 

 him to a high position in the government of the 

 State, and made him prominent at the bar of 

 New Orleans. 



I would advise all bee-keepers migratorily in- 

 clined to investigate into the resources of Lou- 

 isiana before coming here and competing in an 

 already crowded district. 



I was a boy when Mr. Parlange first com- 

 menced bee-keeping on his place near my old 

 home, and it was from visiting his apiary that 

 I was incited to engage in apiculture. I be- 

 gan with 10 three frame nuclei, which I pur- 

 chased of Mr. P. L. Viallon: and the third year 

 after the purchase I had increased to 97 strong 

 colonies, and sold, that year, over $900 worth 

 of honey. 



Apropos of the discussion on adulterated 

 honey, the crop produced that year by Mr. Par- 

 lange, my brother, and myself, was sent in one 

 shipment to a commission merchant in St. Lou- 

 is. I do not remember now how many barrels 

 of honey there were, but nearly enough to load 

 a steamboat— a very small one perhaps — but at 

 any rate, the merchant to whom it was sent 

 concluded so much honey was never gathered 

 by bees, and so had some of it analysed by a 

 chemist. The chemist pronounced it as being 

 adulterated with sugar. Since that time I have 

 always thought chemists we're frauds. 



From just what the bulk of Louisiana honey 

 is gathered I could never make up my mind. I 

 wrote to Gleanings in those days, and sug- 

 gested corn: but A. I. R. laughed at me. Then 

 I criticised Prof. Cook's Guide, wherein he said 

 we reaped a rich harvest from cotton; and then 

 A. I. R.. in his foot-notes, preached me a ser- 

 mon on charity; something which he would 

 not have done had he known in what este m I 

 held Prof. Cook, and the value I pieced upon 

 his opinion; for it was by closely following the 

 teachings of Cook's Bee-keeper's Guide that I 



