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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



they will run with a bell, rattling or 

 beating a pan, or something else, to 

 make a noise. They think that this 

 must be done, or the bees will certainly 

 leave. When the swarm is clustered, 

 the keeper calls for a " gum " to put his 

 bees into ; he is told that there is one in 

 the smoke-house, that has had soap- 

 grease in. Will that do? Yes, if there 

 is no other ! These are facts ; I have 

 seen bees in soap-gums where the soap 

 had eaten the wood until the wood was 

 soft. This is a careless, don't-care way 

 of doing business, or else they do not 

 know any better. 

 Greenville, Tenn., Dec. 18, 1891. 



Bee-Keepli in FlorUa. 



JOHN CBAYCKAFT. 



On page 659 (1891) Mrs. L. Harri- 

 son takes up "Bee-Keeping in Florida," 

 and some other things, on hearsay evi- 

 dence. I do wish the good lady could 

 spend one Winter with the bee-keepers 

 in Florida. "Our latch string hangs 

 out." She would learn a great deal 

 different from the reports given by 

 visitors that come to the State with 

 their anticipations formed that this 

 country will cure them of all their ills, 

 that it will furnish food and raiment 

 without price, and wealth without ef- 

 fort ; and because they do not obtain 

 all these things, they are disappointed ! 



I would say first, that this country is 

 no " paradise," no more than the one 

 the reader lives in. It is just what you 

 make it — either a pleasure or a disap- 

 pointment, a profit or a loss. 



Mrs. Harrison says "she met a lady 

 who had spent several years in that 

 locality (St. Johns and Indian Rivers), 

 who said that she never saw a place 

 that she could not take a broom-handle 

 and run it down to water, and that 

 clothing left upon the first floor of a 

 house during the night would not be 

 safe to put on in the morning, on ac- 

 count of dampness." We have low 

 lands and swamps along the greater 

 part of the St. Johns River, but back 

 from the river a mile or two the lands 

 are generally high pine lands, and the 

 lady with the broom-handle would have 

 to probe old Mother Earth from 20 to 40 

 feet deep to reach water. I have been 

 up and down the St. Johns River a great 

 many times, both day and night, on 

 steamers and row boats, and camped out 

 on the banks and islands, and have 

 never found greater dampness than 1 



did crossing the State of Illinois in 

 wagons in the season of 1860, and 

 passed through Peoria (Mrs. Harrison's 

 home) each way, and camped on the 

 river bank there ; and more, if I am not 

 mistaken in the reports of the humidity 

 of the atmosphere of the "States," 

 Florida is second in dryness, Minnesota 

 being first. 



As to bee-keepers "producing very 

 little comb-honey " on account of damp- 

 ness, that is all " talk." It is a matter 

 of dollars with us, for I am practically 

 certain that I can produce four pounds 

 of extracted-honey to one of comb-honey 

 on the St. Johns River. Instinct teaches 

 the bee that for the long season of this 

 climate they need not go with that rush 

 to gather their needed stores, hence 

 they are slow on comb-honey, while with 

 the extracted their stores are taken 

 away very closely, and it will drive 

 them to business with a rush that they 

 do not have on comb-honey. This is my 

 experience here, and I think is the great 

 cause of so little comb-honey produced 

 in the South, and not on account of 

 the "dampness." 



Mi'S. Harrison's advice to her friend 

 not to purchase bees until she knew 

 where she would locate, was good, but 

 with her permission I would say further, 

 not until she had spent a year with the 

 bee-keepers of Florida, and looked at 

 the different localities, learned the 

 sources of honey and their season, and 

 if not a practical and skilled bee-keeper, 

 and a genuine lover of the bee, to posi- 

 tively let them alone until she had 

 learned all these things before ventur- 

 ing to purchase bees and locate in an 

 orange grove, and expect anything short 

 of disappointment ! 



To those who contemplate coming to 

 Florida for the purpose of making bee- 

 keeping a business, a.nd have not the 

 practical skill and love for the bee, and 

 that is their reason for coming, I would 

 say, don't do it, for you will be doomed 

 to disappointment. You would be cer- 

 tain to make a failure in any place 

 where bees are kept without that skill 

 and love for the business. But if you 

 desire to come South for climatic rea- 

 sons, health and a warm, pleasant 

 climate, and desire to make bee-keeping 

 a side issue, then you had better perhaps 

 come; but to come South, or to "go 

 West and grow up with the country," is 

 usually the worst of folly. 



Nine times out of ten, the best place 

 for you to make money, or a living sup- 

 port, is the spot you are in — you are 

 acquainted there, " you know the peo- 

 ple," the climate, seasons, surrounding.s, 



