AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



311 



This is almost a treeless prairie — a 

 few small groves of timber on the banks 

 of some of the lakes is the only timber 

 there is. One of my neighbors has a 

 grove of about four acres of timber, 

 mostly oak and basswood. About the 

 last of December, while cutting down a 

 tree, he found a colony of bees in it, and 

 his boys at once began to hunt for more 

 bee-trees ; the result was they found 3 

 more, and at last accounts they were 

 all alive and doing well. The question 

 is, where did the bees come from, as 

 there are no bees kept within 12 miles 

 of this timber except mine, and I have 

 had only two swarms rue away ? 



Last season was a good one for honey, 

 and bees stored a large amount of it in 

 sections. There are none that work for 

 extracted honey in this locality. We 

 have a home market for all of our honey 

 at 15 to 16 cents per pound. 



S. B. Smith. 



Keeville, Minn., Feb. 16, 1893. 



Bees Did Well Last Year. 



Bees did well out here the past season, 

 considering the late, wet spring. About 

 two-thirds of the bees in this locality 

 dwindled away and died last spring, 

 owing to the cold, late spring, which 

 made late breeding and swarming, and 

 as almost all the young colonies are 

 light, and the winter severe, the loss 

 from starvation will be heavy. One of 

 my colonies had less than a quart of 

 bees in June, and before the honey sea- 

 son was over they stored 125 pounds of 

 extracted honey. I have a good market 

 for my honey here, and sold my surplus 

 for 15 cents per pound for comb, and 

 10 cents for extracted. 



R. C. Hatch. 



Central City, Iowa, Feb. 16, 1893. 



Peculiarities of California Climate. 



This State is very peculiar as to 

 climate. We have a dozen or more 

 climates ; these we have from the fact 

 that we have such a long stretch of 

 country, and that some of our mountain 

 ranges run up to such a high elevation. 

 While at my friend Bliss' place 22 miles 

 east of Los Angeles, last week, I saw 

 tomato vines in his orchard that were 

 not in the least injured by frost. He 

 told me that he has had vines in bearing 

 for four consecutive years, and they 

 were never, in all that time, injured by 

 frost. Our vines are killed every year. 

 Yet I am told there is a place in this 

 county, something like 20 miles from 



here, where tomatoes go through the 

 winter untouched. Our mulberry trees 

 won't leaf out for a month yet ; those I 

 s'aw on Mr. Bliss' place have already 

 made six inches of new wood, and formed 

 leaves four inches across. 



Again, we are ahead of them in some, 

 things. Our list of wild flowers is far" 

 larger, and the varieties far prettier 

 than anything they have in the southern 

 part of the State. I was surprised to 

 learn that they have no California lau- 

 rels in Southern California. They are 

 common up this way, and are one of our 

 most showy evergreens. They bloom in 

 January, and give the bees an abundant 

 supply of pollen. Then we have dozens 

 of other flowers that do not exist in the 

 lower counties. Why this is so I do not 

 know, unless it is that the many dry 

 years they have there prevented the in- 

 troduction and spread of the finer kinds 

 of flowers In that otherwise beautiful 

 clime. Perhaps it was one of those 

 compensations of nature. 



W. A. Pbtal. 



North Temescal, Calif., Feb. 15, 1893. 



Good Crop of Honey Expected. 



Bees have wintered well here, and are 

 now gathering some pollen. The pros- 

 pects are good for a good crop of honey 

 the coming season in most parts of 

 southwestern Texas. The crop of last 

 year was a complete failure in this sec- 

 tion of the country. Stock of all kinds 

 did poorly. This is, or was, a hard 

 country to look at ; we need rain here 

 badly now, but in almost all of the coun- 

 try south of the Colorado river there 

 has been plenty of rain. We indeed live 

 in a country of milk and honey when we 

 have a good season. A. W. Lamkin. 



Uvalde, Tex., Feb. 18, 1893. 



Bees in Splendid Condition. 



My bees last season did well in com- 

 parison with some of my neighbors, as 

 I took in extracted and comb honey from 

 100 to 150 pounds to the colony, that 

 is, from the best of them. I always win- 

 ter most of my bees on the summer 

 stands. This has been a hard winter 

 for them, as the cold was so intense that 

 they have been kept from flying for so 

 long a time. On Feb. 12th and 13th 

 they had a flight. We have lost 3 out 

 of 47 colonies, but most of the others 

 are in splendid condition. 



John Haskins. 



Douglas, Mo., Feb. 17, 1883. 



