AUGUST 15, 1913 



Beekeeping in California 



p. C. Chadwiok, Bedlands, Cal. 



Some feeding has already begun in a 

 small way, but will not open up in earnest 

 for a few weeks. 



w « * 



Pickled (or sac) brood seems to have had 

 quite an inning this season. Many reports 

 have reached me of the prevalence of tliis 

 disease over most of the southern part of 

 the State. 



I have lc«t several letters containing 

 stamps for reply, among which was one 

 from a gentleman in Nebraska, another 

 from a lady in Washington or Oregon, and 

 another from a lady in Banning, Cal. These 

 parties will do me a favor by writing again, 

 and I will try to give them the desired in- 

 formation. 



July 26, fog and cold is the program at 

 this writing, with some rain in the foot 

 hills and mountain regions. I have never 

 seen a season before witli so much fog and 

 cloudy weather in midsummer. To-day the 

 temperature has been 69 at the highest and 

 59 at the lowest. Last week we had a rain, 

 and for the past two weeks we have had 

 regular winter weather while we were read- 

 ing daily of the heat prostrations in the 

 East. I believe that, if the season had been 

 moist enough to produce a honey crop, 

 there would have been some beekeepers 

 prostrated because of the time that would 

 have been lost by the bees on account of the 

 cold cloudy summer. 



I have had more trouble this season in- 

 troducing queens than at any former time 

 within my memory. Last year I removed 

 the old queen and placed the introducing- 

 eage with the new queen in the hive at one 

 operation, letting the bees release her at 

 will, and I did not lose a queen. But this 

 season I found that the only safe plan has 

 been to make the colony queenless until the 

 cells are well advanced, then to cut off the 

 cells and give to the colony the cage con- 

 taining the new queen, to be released by the 

 bees. I am completely at sea as to the rea- 

 son for the failure of the first plan, condi- 

 tions being almost identical with the condi- 

 tions of last year at introducing time. Some 

 queer things happen at times in this line. 

 Last spring, while working at the apiary 

 with Mr. Byron Crawford, my helper, in 

 some way we lost a queen out of one of the 

 many hives we had handled. There was a 

 question as to what to do with her. Craw- 

 ford wanted to roll her in honey and put 



her in a fertile-worker colony, so I con- 

 sented, and he did so, with the result that 

 she was cleaned up and went to work. 



* * » 



In reading the reports of crop conditions 

 in the July loth issue I notice that in some 

 I^laces the honey crop was cut short by two 

 or three weeks of dry weather in the white- 

 clover belt, and I know full well what that 

 means to the eastern beekeeper from past 

 experience of my own. In this part of Cal- 

 ifornia, if we have had a heavy rainfall 

 through the winter and up to the middle of 

 April we pay no attention to two or three 

 weeks or that many months of dry weather. 

 The last rain we had in 1905 came the first 

 of May, yet every thing yielded in its sea- 

 son. We extracted 30 eases from 110 colo- 

 nies September 12. They filled full again 

 before winter; and the way they came out 

 the next spring with hives full of bees was 

 pleasing indeed. Give us plenty of rain in 

 the winter and we would, but for the cold 

 foggy weather when the honey-flow is on, 

 be ready to join the " Don't Worry Club " 



for a while. 



* * * 



Recently I made a trip into the edge of 

 the mountains to visit a friend. During my 

 stay I discovered a new -style " let-alone 

 hive." It was, as I remember, a soap-box 

 into which the bees had been dumped with 

 some thin boards covered over the top, on 

 which was a rock of some size. The en- 

 trance was two auger-holes, but most of the 

 bees were going in and out under the cover 

 boards. I concluded to make an examina- 

 tion, so I approached the hive as I would 

 one in my own yard. I had reached a point 

 about six feet from the hive when I decided 

 to make a hasty retreat. I turned my head 

 in time to get my eyes out of the way, but 

 the back of my head was about as full of 

 bees as my hair would hold. I let them 

 alone, and have been wishing ever since that 

 I had them where I could spend about fif- 

 teen minutes evei-y day smoking them. 

 There is no question in my mind but that 

 bees get used to having people around. I 

 have hives within 15 feet of my back door- 

 steps, around which my children play day 

 after day, and they rarely get stung. If I 

 bring in a colony from the apiary at any 

 time, it is always necessary to caution the 

 family to go easy around them until they 

 get used to seeing us pass to and fro. This 

 hive I have just spoken of was in a remote 

 place on the farm, and the only thing in the 

 bee line to be found. 



