THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



199 



horse and rode out to Bcniurdo and be- 

 yond, some forty miles, and visited a large 

 number of bee-ranches. The bee-men 

 have squatted all over the government 

 land where they thought they could get 

 good ranges for their bees, living in small 

 frame houses, and mostly without Avomen 

 — "baching it." Bees did so extraordi- 

 narily well here last season, that they 

 created a perfect furor, so that all the 

 citizens here in town, who had any money 

 to invest, went out into the mountains and 

 hunted up a claim, and buying at |15 or 

 $20 a hive all the bees they could. Some 

 few attended their bees and some let on 

 shares, giving one-half the honey and 

 one-half of the increase, and furnishing 

 one-half of the hives and surplus boxes; 

 others live near to take care of them. 



"Last winter was drj-, but the bees start- 

 ed out nicely to swarm the latter part of 

 March, but the first of April they had a 

 heavy frost, which cut oS all the flow- 

 ers and put an end to swarming; since 

 then many a fine swarm has starved to 

 death, and it is only since the fifteenth of 

 this month (May), that they made enough 

 to live on. Now they are doing only 

 fairly, and they say they will not get one- 

 half a crop of honey. Many are discour- 

 aged, particularly the new ones and those 

 who went into the business green, as 

 might be expected. This Fall, say Octo- 

 ber, you can buy an apiary in box-hivee 

 for less than |3.00 each. • I had fifty 

 stands ofTered to me in Harbison's hives, 

 at $5.00 each ; dozens of ranches, and 

 bees will be for sale cheap by discouraged 

 bee-keepers. 



"I have been to Harbison's two or three 

 times, and at one of his six or eight 

 apiaries, where he had 400 stands, he lost 

 over 3,000 hives last spring, and feels much 

 discouraged with this year's work. I saw 

 the man who wTote the article in The 

 American Bee Journal; all the men he 

 mentioned are mad for his making the 

 statements he did, saying he only told one 

 side of the story. It is very costly getting 

 started here, one must have at least $3,000 

 in gold after he gets here. They will not 

 look at an extractor here; extracted 

 honey from 3 to 5 cents and nice comb 

 honey 15 to 16 cents. Harbison says 

 his Italian bees averaged for the last 

 five years, as follows: In 1870, 30 lbs.; 

 1871,' 70 lbs.; 1872, 90 lbs.; 1873, 60 lbs. ; 

 1874, 150 lbs. 



" I would not advise you to come here ; 

 go to Texas, or anywhere else, rather than 

 come here. Vegetables for family use are 

 raised by a very few who have good wells 

 to irrigate all the time. Not one bee- 

 keeper in twenty has or can get water 

 enough to raise what he can eat. They 

 have tried fruit of all kinds, and yet I am 

 told none succeed. Chickens seem to be 

 rather plenty, but they are 75 cents each, 

 and die off by the dozen in the summer. 



No one raises any hogs; they would eat 

 their heads off" with barley at 3 cents per 

 pound. Potatoes are from 4 to 4% cents 

 per pound. Butter, 373^ cents; but nearly 

 all they use comes from San Francisco. 



"This country, like a blank corner of a 

 checker board, is as near a desert as it can 

 be and miss. If not that sheep and bees 

 do well here, it would be utterly depopu- 

 lated in two years. Two steam mills are 

 here, and make little else but bee-hives 

 and material for honey boxes. You can 

 have the material all cut ready to nail for 

 Harbison's hives for $1.80, Langstroth's 

 for $2.25, and your style, which Bowman 

 gets them to make, for the same. Their 

 idea here is to get as much room for sur- 

 plus honey as possible. They put on as 

 many as eight sixteen-pound boxes at 

 once". Nearly every one now has enough 

 empty hives for next year's swarms. 

 Some provide themselves with three new 

 hives for each old one, and as not more 

 than one hive in five have swarmed this 

 year, they have the balance to carry over 

 to next season, and as the expense in a large 

 apiary is heavy, there is lots of dead capi- 

 tal. *One can get all the bees he wants on 

 shares.- Dozens of men are at work for 

 their board at the ranches, mostly inva- 

 lids. G. F. M." 



For-the American Bee Journal. 

 Fertile Workers. 



In "Notes and Queries" in July and 

 August numbers of The American Bee 

 Journal, I saw a statement as to how to 

 get rid of a fertile worker, in answer to a 

 query of Stephen Hall, which is at vari- 

 ance" with my experience (which is 

 limited, however). I have had but two 

 hives infested with fertile workers. One 

 was in the summer of 1871. The hive 

 became queenless by loss of the young 

 queen after hatching, and before she com- 

 menced to lay. I allowed the worker to 

 remain in the hive until her progeny 

 commenced to hatch, without any attempt 

 to supplant her. I then, as I had fre- 

 quently before, attempted to find her in 

 the combs, but failed. I then shook the 

 bees from the combs, and "run" them 

 five or six times over, but failed to find 

 her. Before putting them back into the 

 hive, I introduced a laying queen to them, 

 by scenting with peppermint, and run 

 them into the hive. The queen was 

 accepted, and I had no more trouble with 

 the fertile worker. 



The other instance occurred about three 

 weeks ago, in a hive that had swarmed, 

 and the queen had hatched, for I saw her. 

 When she should have been laying a few 

 days, I opened the hive and found an 

 abundance of eggs, ranging from one to 

 one dozen in a cell, while some cells were 

 empty. I examined the combs closely 



