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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



honey in the supers previous to swarm- 

 ing than the colonies in single hives. 



Doolittle said long ago that 800 inches 

 of comb space gave room enough for 

 any queen, and my experience confirms 

 his judgment. The colonies with two 

 sections gave no larger swarms than 

 those with one. I do not recommend 

 small hives to those that give but little 

 attention to their bees, but for the scien- 

 tific apiarist, to get the most ivhite comb 

 honey, they are indispensable. 



I must say something more about the 

 colony that produced the 250 pounds 

 of honey. There has been a great deal 

 said in the bee-papers about the impor- 

 tance of always removing inferior 

 queens, and filling their places with 

 good ones. My experience had led me 

 to suspect that the bees could attend to 

 this about as well as us big, smart fel- 

 lows. However, I last fall resolved to 

 give this fine point more attention in 

 the future, so I went to such hives as 

 my judgment had determined had poor 

 queens, and wrote on them plainly — 

 "Poor queen. Re-queen this," intend- 

 ing to attend to it in the spring. I placed 

 the colonies on the summer stands in the 

 house, and upon examining them I 

 found the one that afterward made the 

 big yield was marked for re-queening, 

 and this was the reason the hive was not 

 given an extra section. It increased 

 the task of finding and destroying the 

 bad queen, but other work pressed, and 

 the job was neglected. If I had got my 

 intentions carried out, I should have 

 Mlled one of the best queens that it was 

 ever my fortune to possess, as she kept 

 the hive boiling over with bees during 

 the entire season. 



Forestville, Minn. 



More Aliout Oranp County, California. 



Written J or the American Bee Journal 

 BY DR. E. GULLUP. 



There are so many asking about Cali- 

 fornia, that I shall have to answer some 

 of their questions through the American 

 Bee Journal, by the editor's permis- 

 sion. 



There is this about California: The 

 longer a person stays here, the better he 

 likes it, and that is almost universally 

 the case. Some get homesick, and go 

 back East, but six months or a year of 

 Eastern weather cures them completely, 

 and if they can get back to California 

 they stay. I have been here almost 15 

 years, and could not be hired to go East 



to live. I lived in this State five years 

 before concluding to stay in any place 

 permanently, but finally chose this 

 part in preference to any other, on ac- 

 count of locality and advantages of pro- 

 ducing a greater variety of productions 

 than any other part of the State, and its 

 mild, salubrious and healthy climate, 

 and advantage of water transportation, 

 as well as railroad. I enclose a clipping 

 from the ofBcial organ for the World's 

 Fair, showing that I was not deceived in 

 my selection. 



The country is but a small proportion 

 developed, as there are so many large 

 ranches owned by stock-raisers ; but as 

 the land becomes too valuable for herd- 

 ing stock, it is being cut up in small lots 

 of 10, 20 and 40 acres, and sold on 

 reasonable terras to actual settlers. And 

 here I will remark that the actual set- 

 tler — the man that is not afraid to put 

 his shoulder to the wheel and help de- 

 velop and improve the country — is what 

 is wanted, and the growth of the coun- 

 try is astonishing even to old settlers. 



Eastern people can form no idea, for 

 they have never seen anything to at all 

 compare with the marvelous growth of 

 trees, vines, etc. 



It is often said by newcomers that this 

 is no country for a poor man, when it is 

 actually the finest country for the poor 

 man that is able and willing to work, on 

 the face of the globe. For he has no 

 winter to provide against, and it costs 

 him almost nothing to clothe himself 

 and family until he can clothe himself 

 to suit, and he can work almost every 

 day in the year. Right here I wish to 

 correct an Easterner's error. He thinks 

 that our rainy season is dripping con- 

 stantly, when it is, if anything, the 

 most pleasant part of the year. To-day 

 (Dec. 7th) it is clear, warm, balmy and 

 delightful. We have already had two 

 inches of rain, so the whole country is 

 covered with a mantle of green. Ripe 

 oranges, lemons and Japanese plums in 

 blossom, and will ripen in April. Aus- 

 tralian peaches ripen in February, and 

 strawberries nearly the entire year. 



About firewood — one can raise it in an 

 astonishingly short period. There is a 

 coal mine 12 miles from Santa Ana, 

 with coal at the mines $5.00 per ton. 

 All the fire I use is for cooking purposes 

 in the morning. At noon and night I 

 light the gasoline stove so as not to heat 

 up the house. 



September and April are usually the 

 hottest months in the year, for then we 

 are not sure of the cool breeze from the 

 ocean all the time as we are in summer. 

 The country is overran with people that 



