1896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



381 



California through your articles, and by an- 

 swering questions; and now, O doctor! I write 

 this in grief and tears — just because we produce 

 tons of honey to your hundreds ofJpounds,syou 

 want to kick us out of the bosom of your family 

 — apicultural family I mean — without pity and 

 without remorse. 



Dear, dear doctor, have you no tender recol- 

 lections of our childhood in apiculture, when 

 we sat at your feet— the purity and innocence 

 of childhood shining in our eyes— and learned 

 the lessons of wisdom from your lips? O bless- 

 ed lessons! O dreams of golden treasures, flow- 

 ing down from the mountains, actually realized ! 

 What good are you, anyhow, when our master 

 will not allow us to sell you for spot cash ? 

 Barred out of Chicago ! barred out of the north- 

 ern markets by the very master that taught us 

 to handle the tools and to get the product — 

 always assuring us there was a way to sell it. 

 If you, dear doctor, have not yet got a mort- 

 gage on Europe we might send it there. 

 Yours truly, 



Skylark. 



P. S. — I am very sorry to tell you, doctor, 

 that you will have no competition to fight this 

 year. California will not produce half a crop, 

 and I doubt very much whether it will go above 

 a third. You can now get out your roosters 

 and banners, and go on a triumphal torchlight 

 procession as soon as you please. 



That's a splendid idea laid down by Skylark. 

 Every bee-keeper north, south, east, west, join 

 the Exchange. Just think of the sinews of war 

 that would give us. It is evident our Exchange 

 will have ample opportunity to grow this sea- 

 son, for the prospects for a large shipment of 

 honey grow beautifully less as the months 

 advance and the rains fail to refresh the flowers. 



W. T. Richardson, president of the California 

 Bee-keepers' Exchange, while stepping from a 

 moving train at Santa Paula, on the evening of 

 the 10th of April, was thrown so violently to the 

 ground as to be rendered unconscious for sev- 

 eral minutes. His condition has been extreme- 

 ly critical for several days, and at this writing 

 he is not considered wholly out of danger. 



I note what Bro. Hewes says about California 

 honey-yields, on page 259. It is a lamentable 

 fact that our estimates can not be more correct. 

 The only way to estimate a yield is to go to 

 the railroad statistics and calculate from ship- 

 ments. That would be very unreliable for the 

 coming season, for much honey has been held 

 over that would be classed as the crop for 1896. 



There was but little held over from 189t, and 

 there is no way to even up the hold-over or get 

 at the amount held here for home consumption , 

 except by a rough estimate. 



Now, while I am not so sure about honey- 

 yields I am much more so about the number of 

 bee-keepers. While, as Mr. Hewes remarks, 

 Ventura Co. has but 58 bee-keepers, San Ber- 

 nardino has something over 100; and those 

 large counties of Los Angeles, Riverside, and 

 San Diego, have several hundred. I have a list 

 of over 600, and know I have not all of them. 

 There are over 1000 in Southern California, 

 and I will undertake to prove it by showing the 

 names before the year is out. 



One of the most hopeful signs of the times in 

 beedom is the present wide discussion in rela- 

 tion to the marketing of honey. The appli- 

 ances for producing honey have been improved 

 to the very point of perfection— so near to it 

 that such good authority as the Review thinks 

 there will be no more great inventions in that 

 direction. But there is plenty of room in the 

 direction of marketing the product. That field 

 has been neglected too long, and in this feature 

 we expect to see the great improvements with- 

 in the next few years. 



That article in Harper's, about bees, caused 

 a muscular contraction of the muscles of my 

 pedal apparatus. Of course, I would not kick 

 the lady writer of the article; but I do kick 

 when people write to me asking if 1 am the 

 Martin in question— just as though a young 

 man like myself should use a cane, and grace- 

 fully spread that and my hat on the floor, and 

 rhapsodize about bees! Inasmuch as the inci- 

 dent happened in the Sespe country, I am in- 

 clined to think that Ninetta meant to portray 

 that bee-man Mclntyre. 



A. D. D. Wood, a long-geared individual, 

 recently from Lansing, Mich., and now stop- 

 ping in Los Angeles, has taken a violent fever 

 for rearing queens on Catalina Island. This 

 island is located 25 miles from the California 

 coast; and, being a famous resort, it is the only 

 island visited daily by steamers. Its accessi- 

 bility to man and inaccessibility to bees make 

 a desirable place to rear queens and have them 

 fertilized by selected drones. Mr. Wood has 

 secured the sole right to the island for this 

 purpose. We shall watch his progress with 

 interest. 



DR. MILLER S STRAWS LIKE THE STRAW FED 

 TO THE IRISHMAN'S HORSE. 



Dr. Miller's "Straws" remind me of those 

 fed to the Irishman's horse. The horse was fat 

 and sleek, and he declared he fed him nothing 

 but straw, and emphasized the statement by 

 saying, " It wasn't half thrashed either." Grain 

 in it. Dudley W. Adams. 



Tangerine, Fla. 



