1901 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CUI.TURE. 



641 



around Los Angeles recognize me? Well, I 

 guess so — especially the sack. Poor fellows ! 

 how hungry they looked ! worse than 30 cents 

 — no honey season, no sack, no coin. I was 

 sorry for them. 



Then what changes in a few months ! There 

 was friend Jim Crow. When I went north he 

 was all Belgian hares — couldn't talk any thing 

 but does and pedigrees ; had 100, great and 



"Then there was Brodbeck, just a trifle in the oil 

 business." 



small, and going right along to a thousand ; 

 but now it was oil stocks — couldn't say hare ; 

 referred me to his wife — only 30 hares, and 

 gradually declining. 



Then there was Bro. Brodbeck, just a trifle 

 in the oil business when I went away — worse 

 now ; all oil ; reminded me of an oil-derrick — 

 head turned ; sacks of coin galore. Behold 

 the effects of the oil craze. But, after all, 

 Bro. Brodbeck is wise to hold to his bees also 

 — good grit there. 



After these pleasant greetings I made haste 

 to visit my apiary in the secluded defiles of 

 Durfee Canyon, and 69 colonies answered the 

 roll call. There had been some rain before 

 my arrival, but I gave them another liberal 

 sprinkling with the contents of my sack of 

 coin ; and, how they brightened up ! I don't 

 know why it is, but a little coin here and 

 there in an apiary is a wonderful help. Quite 

 a few bee-keepers utterly ignore this feature 



of bee-keeping, but it pays. And, O ye froz- 

 en toed bee-men of the East, all of this bright- 

 ening-up work was done in December and 

 January, when you were clinging to the stove. 

 You can scarcely imagine how lovely it is to 

 hear the hum of the honey-bee all day long in 

 mid-winter. 



Just as I had got my work well done, and 

 was setting out to "ramble " among my old 

 friends in the San Bernardino country, a far 

 cry came from the Simi Valley. Our friend 

 Richardson, afflicted with poor health, need- 

 ed some one to help regulate things in his 

 apiaries. I heeded the call, and promptly 

 made the 60 miles on my wheel. I found that 

 the three dry seasons had diminished his 1200 

 colonies about a half, and there were over 

 12,000 combs to look after in several apiaries. 

 Some of these had been piled up in blocks of 

 bee-hives for two years, and several thousand 

 in a sealed honey-house. Here was surely a 

 study in the preservation of empty combs. We 

 should think that those 250 hives full of emp- 

 ty combs piled five high in a solid block un- 

 der a live-oak tree, and so long in a semi- 

 tropical climate, would not have much more 

 than webs and powdered refuse in them. In 

 the first place, they were put in the hives just 

 as an experienced bee-man would put them — 

 spaced so that surfaces would not touch. As 



Song and dance by Mendleson and others. "I,ove- 

 ly rain ; glorious rain." 



a consequence, fully half of the combs were 

 fit to use in the hives again. Now and then a 

 column of hives would have every comb de- 

 stroyed ; others, webbed only in the center. 

 Often a new bright comb would be found un- 

 touched, while those on each side of it were 

 destroyed. I found the same conditions in the 

 house. The photo gives a glimpse into the in- 

 terior, and of the ragged combs. These combs 

 had been sulphured many times, but they were 



