JUNE 15, 1915 



485 



BEEKEEPING IN CALIFOKNIA 



P. C. Chadwick, Redlaeds, CaS. 



If I were taking students to 

 train in bee culture I would first 

 have them read Lang'stroth's orig- 

 inal work. It is a splendid foun- 

 dation for the thoughts of a be- 

 ginner. 



« • « 



Dr. Miller, in oonnnenting on my remarks 

 regarding: chilled bees, makes a good sug- 

 gestion. But the fact that we lose many bees 

 that arc not frozen but cliilled and lost in 

 the field remains unexplained. 

 « * » 



Tlie picture of granulated aster honey in 

 the comb, page 329, April 1, bears very 

 mucli resemblance to the product from 

 bluecurl in California. This honey often 

 gi-anulates solid, even where sealed. 



• • « 



Louis H. SchoU recommends small stones 

 to indicate the condition of colonies. I 

 have used this method for years as a kind 

 of from-day-to-day record, but am now 

 keeping a book record for permanent in- 

 formation. 



• « • 



At this writing. May 30, the weather has 

 reached a normal point, with the button 

 sage nearly out of bloom in this locality, the 

 white variety just coming in, and wild al- 

 falfa at its best. We are getting a slow 

 flow, the amount of which will remain un- 

 certain for the time being. 

 « • * 



Prospects are for a short crop in the 

 orange and sage belts. When the button 

 sage has its off years it matters not whether 

 it rains by the foot or the inch. It will 

 have its rest any way. That much has been 

 jdainly proven this season. From now on 

 it will remain a fixed fact to me. 

 » • ♦ 



With an empty super, a bee-escape board, 

 and a large wire-escape cone fit to the board 

 instead of the little Porter bee-escapes, one 

 ran get the bees out of a super in about 

 half the time that is required with the Por- 

 ter escapes, and run very little risk of bees 

 and honey getting too hot. 



• * * 



Chilled brood in colonies having swarmed 

 during the past cold weather wa.s not un- 

 common. The loss of bees from all colonies 

 was greater than I had thought could be 

 possible. I had colonies hived on full sheets 

 of foundation six weeks ago (now May 28) 



that drew their foundation the first week or 

 ten days after being hived, that now have 

 many less bees than at that time. 



¥ '« » 



Dr. Miller says, page 393, May 15, that if 

 he had my locality or bees (he wonders 

 which it is) he would suffer no two-year-old 

 queens except a few extra good ones. It is 

 not the bees. I have tried stock from all 

 over the United States, and the result is 

 the same. I requeened most colonies last 

 season and will make a clean sweep this 

 year of all queens one and two years old. 

 I cannot afford to have even ten per cent of 

 my colonies with poor queens in the busy 

 part of the season. 



« « * 



An orange-grower a few days ago said to 

 me he was afraid the set of fruit would be 

 small, owing to the fact that bees could not 

 reach the bloom during the greater part of 

 the blooming period. A few growers realize 

 the importance of the honeybee in fruit- 

 gi'owing; but the majority let others do 

 their thinking to about the extent that is 

 done in other lines of business. In this 

 connection I give the following clipping 

 from the Kansas City Star of May 19 : 

 SAYS "keep a bee." 



A. D. Wolfe, secretary of the Missouri Apicultural 

 Society, talked at the meetin? Saturday and recom- 

 mended the keeping of bees in every orchard, home 

 or commercial. Mr. Wolfe did not talk from theory, 

 but made his speech largely a series of citations 

 from the experiences of fruit-growers and beekeep- 

 ers. Three essentials were necessary to grow fruit, 

 he said — weather, spraying, and bees. 



If a stand or two of bees is kept in each orchard 

 the fruit will be larger, better-flavored, better-color- 

 ed, more abundant, and of better keeping quality, 

 he said. Apples and cucumbers particularly are 

 benefited by bees, while strawberries near the hives 

 frequently produce fair crops that would have been 

 failures without bees. For example, he cited a fif- 

 teen-acre strawberry-field that lost practically all its 

 first blossoms by frost. The second blossoms that 

 came on, naturally, were weak and would have set 

 little and poor fruit had not the bees pollinated 

 them in seeking honey. 



Beekeepirag in tlie Southwest 



Continued fi'om page 4S4. 



a new location for increase. Set on a bot- 

 tom-board, each given a caged queen, cov- 

 ered up, and the entrances closed with 

 green weeds or grass, they will take care of 

 tliemselves. After the queens have begun 

 laying the^ nuclei may be strengthened by 

 simply setting another of these supers on 

 eacli one. This second lot of supers will 

 come from colonies that had not yet begun 

 work in the comb-honey supers suflficiently 

 when the increase was made. 



