226 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



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p. C. Chadwick, Redlands. Cal. 



The automobile, without doubt, will large- 

 ly take the place of the horse in apiary work; 

 but old Dobbin will be found wending his 

 way up the rough canyon roads and around 

 the foot-hills for some time yet. 



Hives should not stand in the shade in 

 this country. There is a difference of from 

 25 to 45 degrees between the temperature of 

 day and night, which makes the morning 

 sun valuable in getting the bees warmed up 

 and into the field as early as possible. I 

 have fourteen colonies in my back yard, on 

 which I do much of my experimenting and 

 make observations. A part of them are un- 

 der orange trees, and I find these much less 

 active than those in the sun, except on very 

 warm days. 



Mr. J. K. Williamson, of this city, and 

 widely known in the southern part of the 

 State, has sold most of his bees and moved 

 to Mendicino Co. Our local beemen will 

 miss him much; for, besides the convenience 

 of his little hive factory and excellence of 

 his workmanship, he was much consulted 

 on questions of bee management, for he is a 

 close observer, with more than 40 years of 

 experience, 23 of which were spent in Red- 

 lands. It is safe to guess that he will soon 

 be in the business at his present location. 



No longer does my mind feel akin to that 

 of the "man from Missouri." I have been 

 "shown." It rained long and hard, and 

 doubtless much good will result; but, alas! 

 too late, I fear, to result in the benefit many 

 looked for; besides, it is the off year with 

 the sages, and that, to my mind, is signifi- 

 cant. My bees have little more brood than 

 at this date a year ago, due to the long 

 drouth followed by cold stormy weather. 

 The redeeming feature is that I have a much 

 better supply of old bees to support brood- 

 rearing when the weather warms up. 



Ellas Fox, p. 180, Mar. 15, has taken excep- 

 tions to my comments on his bee hunting. 

 He says he would like to live in a country 

 where he could find nine bee trees while 

 walking a distance of two miles, and that 

 he would soon have the bees in hives, or de- 

 stroyed if diseased. If he could get a per- 

 mit from the government to cut the trees he 

 could find on this one reserve that there 

 would be a lifetime job ahead of him, and 

 he might safely order a few hundred hives 

 to begin with. Trees that are now sound 

 would be decayed, and contain hollows large 

 enough to hold bees before he got through. 

 Eastern people have little idea of the num- 

 ber of wild bees in this country. Mr. .T. D. 

 Bixby, of Covina, Cal., told me of a man 



who, having lost most of his bees, took, I 

 think, 140 empty hives, put them up in 

 trees, and caught 120 swarms in one season. 

 In the season of 1905 I divided two strong 

 colonies, that were ready to swarm, into 

 eleven hives, giving each two frames of 

 brood with a queen cell. Six of these gave 

 me a full extracting before the season's close. 

 I can make colonies cheaper than any man 

 can chop them out of trees. It doesn't pay 

 here. 



Mr. A. F. Wagner, of El Centro, Cal., p. 

 144, March 1, has quoted only a part of my 

 sentence on p. 89. Read the two following 

 lines of my article. There seems to be some 

 concern about my knowledge of the foul- 

 brood law, for on p. 700, Nov. 15, Mr. T. O. 

 Andrews says I made a made a very unwar- 

 ranted attack on it. Now Mr. Wagner tells 

 how the inspector is appointed and how he 

 can be removed. However, here in San 

 Bernardino Co. we have one of those non- 

 removable kind, and we have tried in vain,, 

 with petitions, personal talks with the su- 

 pervisors, and every available means, to get 

 the politician out and a bee inspector in; 

 but we have failed. Why? because the law 

 is weak in allowing the office to be at the 

 disposal of the supervisors instead of the 

 beekeepers. A chain is no stronger than its 

 weakest link, neither is a law. But so long 

 as our county is cursed with an inspector 

 such as we have I will continue to pound 

 the law; and to those who desire, I will ex- 

 tend the privilege of pounding me. 



If Mr. Wagner had been before the State 

 Association, and heard the discussions on a 

 resolution offered by Mr. Geo. L. Emerson, 

 of Los Angeles, requesting the Board of 

 Supervisors of San Bernardino Co. to re- 

 move the present inspector, he would doubt- 

 less have a different view of the law. Mr. 

 Emerson's resolution passed without a dis- 

 senting voice. Mr. ^\agne^ says, "Do we 

 want the Governor to appoint our inspect- 

 or ? " By all means we do; but we want the 

 beekeepers to have a say about whom he ap- 

 points — in short, leave the selection in the 

 hands of the beekeepers, and the legalizing 

 of the appointment with the Governor. 

 Truly it is a condition and not a theory that 

 is confronting us. 



Cramps Caused by Eating Honey 



Several of my friends like honey, but can not eat 

 it, on account of cramps which it causes in the 

 stomach. Is there any way to overcome this by 

 treating the honey in some way? C. C. C. 



[It is true that some persons can not eat honey ; 

 but cases of this kind are few and far between. Our 

 Impression is that the honey is not always to 

 blame. However, some have suggested that they 

 suffer no bad after-effects if they drink milk at the 

 same time they eat the honey, or mix the honey 

 and milk together.— Ed.] 



