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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



June IS, 190S 



pared hive two frames of the youngest brood you can find, 

 and one where you can see the bees just gnawing from the 

 cells, all of which combs should have more or less honey 

 along the tops of the combs and at the upper corners. Having 

 these combs in place, set in a frame which is the most full of 

 brood of any, next the zinc in the larger side of the hive. Now 

 set in the frame having the queen on it, and then fill out that 

 side of the hive, which will contain six combs, leaving out the 

 one which would go in where the sheet of perforated metal is 

 used. The comb to be left out is one having no brood in it. 

 which you generally can find. If not, give ihis comb of brood 

 to some other colony, after having shaken the bees off it into 

 their own colony. 



The next day after having the colony so fixed, start your 

 queen-cells as given in " Scientific Queen-Rearing," take out 

 the frame of hatching brood of the three put in the smaller 

 side of the hive, draw the next to the side of the hive and put 

 in the frame of prepared queen-cups in the open place. If 

 there is a frame in the larger side of the hive which does not 

 have brood in it, take that out so as to give place to this- frame 

 of brood ; otherwise shake off the bees and give it to some 

 other colony. Now close the hive, and in three days, if you 

 look, you will find nearly every one of the queen-cell cups on 

 their way toward completed queen-cells, if you are anywhere 

 near as successful as I am.. 



I can see no difference as regards the good qualities of 

 queens reared in this way and those reared in upper stories, 

 as given in " Scientific Queen-Rearing ;" but the work is less 

 with the upper stories after the colonies have become strong 

 enough to do good work above. Onondaga Co,, N. Y. 



# 



California Bee- Keeping— Past and Future 



BY C. W. DAYTON 



OUR long season of anxiety is ended. The bees began to 

 make their own living the first of April. We began to 

 feed them on the first day of last .July, making it a nine 

 months' dearth of honey. Still, all along through July and 

 August they continued to get a small amount of honey from 

 sumac and wild buckwheat. Some of the most industrious 

 colonies got enough, perhaps, to keep them alive, but the 

 general class of colonies went right down to starvation condi- 

 tion. At the start there were about 210 colonies. Now there 

 are probably 160 left, about 50 having dwindled out from hav- 

 ing too old queens or none at all. Some did not rear enough 

 young bees last September, and the old bees continued to fly 

 out of their hives all the fall and winter, of course causing the 

 hives to become depopulated from old age of working bees. 



During this time we fed about 3000 pounds of honey, 

 nearly all in the open air. The next apiary north ted $3S 

 worth of sugar to 220 colonies. There are 90 alive now. The 

 next apiary south, of 250 colonies, fed 600 pounds of honey. 

 There are 80 colonies alive now. The mortality among the 

 colonies has been greater than usual for dry years. I do not 

 know whether it is because the bee-men are losing courage, or 

 because it was a worse case than usual. One thing, last sea- 

 son the sage utterly failed to bloom — something I never heard 

 of before. It has always yielded somewhat. ]5ut the sumac 

 and buckwheat held out exceedingly well. Sumac continued 

 for something like six weeks, while I have known it in good 

 years to dry up and fail in 10 days of hot weather, liut last 

 season held out cool and favorable. I have known buckthorn 

 to yield honey early in the winter so as to fill the supers pretty 

 well, but this time it almost failed to blossom and gave no 

 honey at all, notwithstanding the abundance of moisture. 

 Three years ago there came two inches of rain the second day 

 of November, and in December the bees roared on the buck- 

 thorn bloom nearly eciual to basswood. NeitherJ did the 

 eucalyptus yield anything in the valleys. In 1898. from 

 eucalyptus, they completely filled their supers in .lanuary. 

 Still there has been very mild weather all winter. Sometimes 

 we have frosts and freezes often, and I have known a pretty 

 heavy frost as late as May 5. 



While this fine weather has failed to help us out with a 

 yield of beofeed from some source, it has permitted the colo- 

 nies which have be('U fi-d liberally, to make the greater strides 

 in the way of brood-rearing. Since the middle of December 

 we fed, every pleasant day, all they could carry to their hives. 

 This caused them to rear brood during January and February 

 to their utmost, so that the first of April finds tbe hives full of 

 bees and all the combs full of brood. Usually the sage is 

 ahead of the bees, but ntthe present time the bees are waiting 

 for sage, which is just beginning to blossom, and every corolla- 

 tube contains a small drop of nectar. 



If the price of SIO a colony were offered it would be no 



temptation to us to sell bees. They have never failed to yield 

 200 pounds to the colony in such seasons as the present. We 

 count 200 pouLds of honey worth $16, and sometimes it brings 

 $18 for the first quality, according to how it is marketed. 



The 50 colonies which have died I think might have been 

 saved had they had better attention. That is, by feeding them 

 in the hives, specially last August, to make them rear the 

 required amount of young bees, and then to keep them sup- 

 plied with stores in the early part of the winter. Colonies 

 having old or poor queens do not seem to have energy to carry 

 feed. Yet if they are kept until spring they would build up 

 into good working colonies, and could be requeened for the 

 season with queen-cells from some of the most forward colonies. 



The 50 colonies at 200 pounds each would gather five tons 

 of honey, which, at 8 cents per pound, would amount to $800. 

 I do not think it would have cost more than $50 in labor to 

 have saved that amount. But we tried one of the "short 

 cuts" by open-air feeding. It required only to heat up a can 

 of honey, mix with water and put it out in pans, where the 

 bees could take it. 



In 1896 I had 225 colonies to take through a dry year just 

 like this, and not one was lost. But they were fed in the 

 hives. In the spring I sold 75 colonies for $250. I gave the 

 purchasers their choice out of the apiary and they took the 

 strongest, of course. The apiary averaged 225 pounds to the 

 colony that season. But we sold honey at S cents per pound 

 then. Since then we have made a market, and there is no 

 question but that we shall get 8 cents for all of the first grade 

 and 7 cents for amber. This is not a high price, nor yet a low 

 price. It is a price that we as producers and the consumers 

 can afford. If extracted honey is held at 10 or 12 cents a 

 pound it becomes a luxury — to look at, for company, or for 

 some special occasion. Then it comes in competition with 

 candies and other fancy, nonsensical trash which is only cal- 

 culated to tempt the sight and palate. Then if it is sold at 3 

 to 5 cents per pound there is not much remaining above the 

 cost of production. It has often been stated that it costs 

 about 4 cents per pound to produce extracted honey. By an 

 unusually good harvest, by buying the colonies at a low price 

 of some one who does not know what they ought to be worth, 

 or by the employment of cheap help, or by taking all the bees 

 gather and allowing them to starve, the cost-price of honey 

 may sometimes be cut down a cent or two per pound lower 

 than that ; but to the one who is keeping bees from year to 

 year such methods do not pay. A person will have to wait 

 and watch for such opportunities. And then they may not 

 appear, and he is compelled to maintain himself two or three 

 years without an income, or until his means are all used up. 

 The only sure way is to get into " the game" and stay in it. 

 Those that stay in it are always in practice, or, as we may 

 say, " in training." Those are the ones who are best pre- 

 pared to endure the hard " tugs." And the bee-man who 

 broug-ht his bees through such seasons as the one just passed 

 does not need to look for employment or await an opportunity. 



It is simply a matter of "keeping the shoulder at the 

 wheel." The main force that enables one to stay at the 

 " wheel " is love for the business. With the more " ups and 

 downs " and " hard knocks " there come, and success at last, 

 unwavering confidence is established or increased ; and we 

 should then set out to contrive methods to be conveyed over 

 such times easily, or by the least amount of interruption 

 when they occur in the future. 



One fault of our management a year ago, just previous to 

 the scarcity of honey, was allowing the colonies to breed up so 

 as to contain a large force of bees which could be of no use. 

 This was done at the expense of their abundant supply of 

 winter stores, which was left in the hives from the previous 

 good season. If the (jueens could have been restricted to two 

 or three brood-combs there would have been enough young 

 bees reared for all needs, and besides would have saved the 

 laying capacities of the queens. If the queens had been pre- 

 vented from exhausting their egg-laying disposition in the 

 spring, they might have kept up more brood-rearing in Sep- 

 tember and October, and produced more late-reared bees, 

 which were so much needed to go through the past winter and 

 spring. The queens would have possessed better vitality, 

 also, which exerts a corresponding influence on the worker- 

 bees, resulting in the colonies being mori> tenacious of exist- 

 ence and tlie appropriation of feed. The useless bees reared 

 a year ago would be of high value now, but our hives were 

 not so constructed as to permit of such transposition, at least, 

 " on short notice." It was known that there could be no 

 honey for them to gather. Some persons suggested that bees 

 know when, and when not, to rear their brood. So we allowed 

 them to follow their natural instincts. Another time we in- 

 tend to inject some intelligence into their methods. 



In the eastern and northern States, when colonies are 



