428 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE, 



May 15 



bor during that part of the year when bees 

 were doing' nothing-, terraced off the ground 

 so that it was as pretty as a picture. In 

 the upper portion, Fig. 2, will be seen the 

 straig^ht rows. There would be from one 

 to two lines of hives on a terrace. On the 

 one above that, there would be another line 

 or two, and so on clear up to the foot of the 

 mountain. 



This yard, at the time of my visit, I think 

 had something- like 500 strong colonies, and 

 the bees were fairly booming-. Twentj' 

 tons of honey had been taken off; but as the 

 season was drawing to a close, only about 

 five tons more would be taken. 



Mr. Mendleson apologized for there being 

 so many old hives he had bought up, but 

 showed me a row of new Danzenb J<er hives 







i^ '^i 



t%» 





FIG. O. — Ml-.NL»LKSON AND ONE OF HIS DAN- 

 ZENBAKEK HIVES. 



which were devoted to the production of 

 honey. By the way, you may guess who 

 that fellow is in the foreground in the upper 

 portion of Fig". 2. I had planned to take 

 pictures of all the force employed at that 

 yard; but the boys would not consent to anv 

 snap shot unless I would dress up in old 

 clothes as they did. They were not goini;- 

 to have any city chap come to their canyon 

 and photograph them in their everj'-d ay at- 

 tire unless I would come down to a common 

 level"with them. As I wanted the fun and 



" experience " of helping to extract and do 

 some of the work in true California stjde, 

 the boys kindly fixed me out in a suit of 

 overalls and jumper. Notwithstanding they 

 were clean, they were somewhat the worse 

 for wear, and tit — well, you can see for 

 yourself. I put them on; "and now," said 

 the boys, "you look real handsome. Let's 

 have your picture." 



"All right," I said; "fire away." 



As they took me in, I was taking in, as 

 was mj' custom, the mountain scenery which 

 I so thoroughly enjoyed. 



The little patches seen along the moun- 

 tain sides, not the larger bushes, were prac- 

 tically all mountain sage. Most of it was 

 black sage, some white sage, and some but- 

 ton sage. But of these I will have some- 

 thing to say in our next issue. 



mendleson's comb honey. 



After the boys had "done me up" in the 

 camera I took several shots of them ; but, 

 unfortunately, the pictures were poor. But 

 I secured a very good representation of our 

 friend Mendleson sitting down beside some 

 of his honey. Nor was that the best — a 

 picked lot — by any means. It was two or 

 three cases taken at random and set down 

 on the hives. I then requested Mr. Men- 

 dleson to sit down beside it, and the view 

 is seen in the bottom of Fig. 2. This is all 

 4X5 plain sections, produced in Danzen- 

 b iker hives, for Mr. Mendleson seems to be 

 .m admirer of the Danzenbaker system, for 

 comb honey. While he produces a great 

 deal of 4 '4 honey, he seems to be working 

 over toward these beautiful tall boxes. 



In Fig. 3 we get a view of how Mr. Men- 

 dleson tiers up his Danzenbaker hives for 

 the production of comb honey; for he stands 

 before one of these hives, in the act of re- 

 moving the cover. Like many a bee-keeper 

 he makes use of a broad-bladed putty-knife, 

 Hs will be seen, for removing the cover, sep- 

 arating the frames, or for any work of that 

 sort. 



mendleson's storage-tanks. 



In Fig. 4 we have a view of some of Mr. 

 Mendleson's ten or twenty ton honey-tanks. 

 The extracting-house is shown over at the 

 right. The pipes run from a strainer just 

 under the extractor, and communicate di- 

 rectly with these tanks. In one of these 

 tanks Mr. Mendleson had two feet of honey 

 candied solid. The tank was six to eight 

 feet deep, four or five feet across, and the 

 problem was how to get it out. I clambered 

 up on the sides and looked in. Said I, 

 "The only way you can get it is to get 

 down there yourself with a spade and dig 

 it out, put it into pails, and then melt it 

 up." 



I'.XTRACTING BY STEAM POWER; THE TIRED 

 YANKEE AND THE STEAM-ENGINE. 



I said I desired to help Mr. Mendleson in 

 true California stj'le, and I did. To me 

 was assigned the task of turning the crank 

 of a six-frame Cowan extractor — one made 

 by the Root Co. I did not know what was 

 before me or I think I would not have been 



