1889 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



207 



and brood is always placed near the south side of 

 hives in the spring. J. F. McIntyre. 



Fillmore, Cal., Jan. 21, 1889. 



Friend M., we are very greatly obliged to 

 you. I was very much interested, in fact, 

 in your hexagonal apiary ; but those great 

 mountains before and behind your pretty 

 little ranch kept me staring so much of the 

 time with open mouth that I am afraid I 

 did not look at the apiary as much as I 

 might have done otherwise. Perhaps not 

 all the readers may be as fortunate as you 

 are in having access to stones of any par- 

 ticular size you may happen to need. I 

 want to explain to the friends, that right in 

 front of his house a big block of granite 

 about the size of a meeting-house stands as 

 tranquilly and unconcerned as if it had a 

 perfect right there ; but friend M. told me, 



PLAN OF SESPE APIARY, BELONGING TO J. F. MCINTYRE, 

 FILLMORE, CAL. 



when I looked at it in a questioning way, 

 that it came down the canyon one night in 

 a flood, and stopped right there. In my in- 

 nocence I spoke about following the path 

 up to the summit of a mountain right across 

 the stream, while waiting for the buggy. 

 They said I would not have time, and asked 

 me if I noticed some animals away up on 

 the summit of the mountain. I told him I 

 saw some little black pigs, if that was what 

 he meant ; but after I looked carefully, the 

 little black pigs seemed to have horns on 

 their heads. When told they were cows, 

 the mountain seemed to spring up a quarter 

 of a mile all at once, and I concluded I 

 would not go up where those little cows 

 were, especially as we hadn't more than an 

 hour to spare. 



Do you want to know something more 

 about the apiary? Well, Sespe Apiary, as 

 they call it, is one of the prettiest I ever 

 saw. The honey -house is at the foot of the 

 incline, just below the bee-hives, so that a 



cartload of honey goes down through those 

 open lanes without much labor. Between 

 the honey-house and the road is a great iron 

 tank. These iron tanks are to be seen near 

 every honey-house in California. An iron 

 pipe runs from the extractor into the tank ; 

 then a gate at the bottom of the tank lets 

 the honey into the square cans, standing on 

 a platform just right to load into a wagon. 

 There is no need of building any roof over 

 the tank, for it never rains in California 

 during the honey-flow. You will find a 

 photograph of some of the mountains back 

 of Sespe Apiary, in our ABC book. Right 

 back of the apiary, on the western slope, is 

 an irrigating canal that pleased me greatly. 

 It is a sort of wooden flume ; and the sight 

 of the pure babbling brook that glides down 

 over the sandy and gravelly bottom, as if it 

 were in a big hurry to get some- 

 where, was to me a fascination. 

 These streams of watermean busi- 

 ness — market - gardening, fruit- 

 raising, etc. The picture of R. 

 Wilkin's apiary, in the ABC 

 book, does not begin to do justice 

 to the spot. The trees seen scat- 

 tered about are orange and fig 

 trees, and the oranges and figs are 

 good too. 



Do you want to know what our 

 young friend McIntyre is doing 

 with R. Wilkin's apiary? Why, 

 he married friend Wilkin's young- 

 est daughter — that is how it comes 

 about. Oh, yes ! I want to tell 

 you one thing more about young 

 McIntyre : He is a young Canadi- 

 an, like " our John ;" and I tell 

 you, friends, when you find better 

 boys to work than these young 

 " Canucks " you will have to fly 

 around lively. When friend Wil- 

 kin was putting up his shipload of 

 honey to take to Europe there was 

 a great demand for tinners, to 

 solder up cans. The best tinner in 

 San Buenaventura succeeded in 

 soldering only about 1100 cans a 

 day; but friend McIntyre, after a 

 couple of weeks' practice, solder- 

 ed up l/fio. 



This is the same apiary that E. Gallup 

 had charge of some years ago. Friend G. is 

 now located in Santa Ana, near Los An- 

 geles, but he was not keeping bees when I 

 called upon him. 



DO LIZAKDS EAT BEES? 



PROF. COOK TELLS US SOMETHING ABOUT THE 

 LIZARD FAMILY IN GENERAL. 



R. J. M. WOODHOUSE, Durango. Dubuque 

 Co., Iowa, writes: "Thei-e is a small quad- 

 ruped, about six inches long, with striped 

 body and blue tail. It lurks about my 

 hives, burrowing last summer under an 

 empty hive in the bee-yard. What is it? Does it 

 eat bees or honey, and is it poisonous? " 



This is doubtless Scincus fosceatus, Holbr.— the 

 blue-tailed striped lizard. This lizard is about 

 eight inches long when full grown. Its head is 

 bluish black, with six light-yellow lines, and its 



