500 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



on that, Jennie, 'cause I don't know, but this fact stands out, that some of the best 

 yields I've had were from colonies that made no attempt to swarm, and others have 

 reported in the same way. But we don't get on very fast at getting bees that are 

 non-swarmers. Heddon thinks he's getting there, but Hasty thinks it's the seasons 

 and not Heddon's bees. In the meantime I'm going to rub along with the swarmers, 

 and try to keep them from swarming all I can, in spite of nature. 



Swarming and Increase. — "Many men of many minds." S. C. Markon (page 

 442) thinks that with swarming, byhis method, he can get more honey in a good 

 honey-flow " than can any person with any method which prevents natural swarm- 

 ing," and then asks if he isn't right. I don't like to be too positive. Friend Markon, 

 for there are a good many things I don't know, but it looks a good deal as though 

 the majority of bee-keepers did not agree with you. Years ago the number of 

 swarms obtained was considered the measure of success, and the man who had three 

 or four swarms from each colony was very " lucky." Later, the question began to 

 be asked, " How can increase be prevented ?" "Within a few years the question 

 changed to "How can swarming be prevented?" Why should this question be 

 asked so often and so earnestly, if swarming be desirable, or how does it come that 

 lately non-swarmers can attract so much attention '? Marengo, 111. 



[*Yes, yes, Doctor, we hear all you say, but we haven't time now to attend to 

 your questions. We are getting ready to be off to St. Joe. But just wait till ive get 

 back, and maybe you'll wish you hadn't put in your "I's" at all. — Editor.] 



BEE-KBEPING IIV CAI.IFORNIA. 



BY W. A. PRYAL. 



The bee-region of California, as almost every one knows by this time, is in the 

 lower counties. These counties are all south of the Tehachapi Pass, on the line of 

 railroad running south from San Francisco, and may be designated as the counties 

 of Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego and 

 the new county of Riverside. What is usually referred to as Southern California 

 includes the counties just named, and the southern portions of San Luis Obispo and 

 Kern counties. Of course, there is no real geographical division to distinguish any 

 particular portion of the lower part of the State from that more to north. It is 

 generally admitted that the counties first named have the most equable climate in 

 the State, though even counties three or four hundred miles further north have fine 

 climates— so much so, that their oranges and other fruit come into the market 

 earlier. But for all this, there is no doubt that a large portion of the lower part of 

 the State is more than able to hold its own against the rest of the State. 



In many of the level places, and in patches through the hills and mountains of 

 this southern part of California, the celebrated white and black sages of honey-fame 

 grow. As the plains where these sages were once wont to grow in all their native 

 luxuriance are now mostly given over to orchards and smiling gardens, the bee no 

 longer finds sage bloom there. The sages still grow in the hills and mountains, 

 though not as numerously as in years gone by. This is owing, mostly, to the fact 

 that the ranges have been pastured to sheep. Then fires have swept over great 

 tracts of sage fields, destroying, as it went on its mad career, thousands of acres of 

 this grand bee-pasture. Through the timely forethought of some bee-keepers these 

 devastated pastures have been in a measure restored to their former usefulness ; 

 this was done by reseeding the districts burnt over, with sage and other seeds. It 



