of the enclosure is put in and the corners 

 secured as before with hoop iron. Tlie top 

 of the enclosure is now open ready to 

 receive all the fine rowen or chaff, which 

 can be packed into it by the most thorough 

 methods. This done, put on the top or 

 cover, which should have an inclination 

 sufficient to turn the rain ; and these three 

 colonies may be regarded as needing no 

 further care until the honey season opens. 



As this plan, of necessity changes the 

 location of many hives, the enquiry will be 

 made as to the means employed to keep 

 them in their new position. After all the 

 brood is hatched and the honey season over, 

 the bees have assumed their winter repose ; 

 no bee leaves the hive without flying before 

 the entrance and locating it as do queens and 

 young bees on their first flight. 



For the benefit of those who cannot easily 

 obtain chaff, I would say that I use fine 

 short grass cut from my apiary, from time 

 to time during the summer, to pack with, 

 and believe it is superior to chaff and much 

 better to handle ; besides it may be used 

 over and over, without much loss. This is 

 of consequence when it is known that over 

 two tons were used in preparing my 80 colo- 

 nies for the present winter. 



Abronia, Mich. 



Read before the Michigan State Convention. 



Bee-Keepmg in Southern California. 



BY M. S. BAKER. 



In my opinion the natural resources of 

 Southern California for the bee business 

 are unequaled, except perhaps the market, 

 for which we depend in a great measure up- 

 on sending it abroad. After supplying our 

 own state and territories at the west, we 

 must ship by rail overland to an eastern 

 market, or by a voyage of five months to 

 Europe. The price in shipping is much in 

 favor of the European market. It costs 

 one-half cent per pound from San Francisco 

 to Liverpool and two and one-half cents to 

 Chicago or New York. If we put our 

 honey into any of your eastern markets, we 

 must first pay a tariff of two cents a pound, 

 so that the railroad really affords the east a 



Brotective tariff of two cents. Southern 

 alifornia is now shipping large quantities 

 to commission merchants in Germany on 

 an advance of 534 cents per pound. Some 

 of the reasons why Southern California is 

 unequaled for bee business is that we get a 

 fine quality of honey and more of it for a 

 given amount of labor and bees. We are to 

 no expense and suffer no losses in winter- 

 ing, and our bees increase much more rap- 

 idly than at the East or in any country I 

 have ever heard of. 



We have no rains during the honey-pro- 

 ducing season to hinder the bees from stor- 

 ing honey, or the apairist from his business. 



The honey-producing plants in the moun- 

 tains afford a superior quality of honey, the 

 principal of which are the white and ball 

 sage ; usually from this the honey is gath- 

 ered in the month of June, aid is our whi- 

 test honey. The bear berry and sumac afford 

 a fine flavored light straw-colored honey, 

 but is more inclined to granulate. The bees 

 work on this through the month of July 



and the first half of August. This consti- 

 tutes nearly the whole of the season for 

 storing surplus honey. There are of course 

 a large variety of other plants and shrubs 

 that afford honey, among them are laurel, 

 wild buckwheat, mountain mahogany, wild 

 alfalfa, etc. Ordinarily our bees find flow- 

 ers enough that afford honey for their liv- 

 ing through the winter. 



Our honey when extracted was about }{ 

 sealed. We then passed it through a large 

 sun evaporator, from which we removed a 

 thick scum before drawing it into our res- 

 ervoir, being ripe and thicker than all 

 sealed honey. Our honey house is two 

 stories high ; we extract on our upper floor 

 (which is nearly on a level with our apiary 

 ground), pass the honev from the extractor 

 through the strainers into the evaporator, 

 from that to our tank in the lower story. 

 For our uncapping we used hot knives, but 

 are now assured that the Bingham and 

 Hetherington patent knife does the work 

 very nicely cold. If this be so, then Bing- 

 ham has again laid the bee men under last- 

 ing obligations to him, for the Bingham 

 smoker is of great value to the business. 



We made no artificial swarms until after 

 taking surplus honey, and prevented our 

 bees from swarming all we could, by re- 

 moving the queen cells, and when a swarm 

 came out, leaving the parent hive weak, we 

 returned them and took away all the queen 

 cells, and still our bees nearly doubled from 

 natural swarming. 



We successfully made and used comb 

 foundation, the result of which on the 

 whole has been very satisfactory. 



After we had done extracting we divided 

 75 colonies without reference to where we 

 left the queen, taking half the brood and the 

 bees and put them into a new box, placing 

 the surplus box with what bees were in it 

 on top ; most of these were natural swarms. 



If one half the effort was put forth here 

 that is in Michigan, the results would be 

 four-fold. A bee man in this county from 

 one swarm this season extracted 1000 pounds 

 of good honey, and made 14 colonies from 

 the original one. The box was 12x18 inside, 

 a common double Langstroth hive. The 1,000 

 pounds was all taken from the parent hive. 



Some of your bee-men recommend ex- 

 tracting honev before it is sealed. In my 

 opinion the farmer might just as well 

 cut his grain before it is ripe, unless meas- 

 ures are taken to ripen it as soon as ex- 

 tracted. Honev equally as good as ours, 

 extracted from unsealed combs and put in- 

 to cans, often ferments and bursts the cans, 

 while ours that went through the sun-evap- 

 orator is neither fermented nor granulated. 

 San Francisco dealers are now complaining 

 of unripe honey put into market. It costs 

 but little more in any branch of business 

 to produce a good article than a poor or in- 

 ferior one. Southern California bee district 

 is composed of four counties, Ventura, San 

 Bernardino, Los Angeles, and San Diego. 



The sun never shone on a more delight- 

 ful climate than is afforded here. Not an 

 excessive warm day did we experience at 

 our apiary last season. We can make our 

 calculations a week or month in advance, 

 knowing no storms will interfere. 



Santa Monica, Cal., Nov. 5, 1878. 



