62 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



feet in depth. I do not know of any- 

 artesian well in the county, but would 

 suppose they would be tried, to avoid the 

 great loss of crops during the long 

 seasons of drouth. 



In the town of San Diego, the water is 

 not good, but such as it is, is sold at the 

 rate of three cents a bucketfull. 



The Water Company is now trying to 

 remedy this bj' pumping water from the 

 bed of the river of the same name. 

 Nearly all the water we get from wells is 

 warmer than the outside air, when first 

 drawn, so that you have to let it stand and 

 cool. Ice is out of the question. A little 

 is brought down from somewhere up to- 

 wards the North Pole, and sold at 5 cents 

 a pound. 



Those of us who keep horses, usualiy 

 have to buy hay for them or submit to 

 their getting too poor to do any work 

 during the long dry seasons. 



Hay in this country is not the hay of 

 the Eastern States. It is wheat, barley, or 

 oat straw, cut while yet green. 



This is often hauled ]5 to 30 miles, as 

 it is only at rare intervals that any is 

 grown. 



The seasons here are two — the wet and 

 the dry. The former extending from 

 December to March, during which time, 

 rain usually falls in sufllcient quantities 

 to overflow the sand in the beds of the 

 streams, and even create a torrent through 

 which, over the treacherous quicksands 

 of the streams it is dangerous to cross. 

 Some of tlie streams are bridged, and few 

 have steep banks where the roads cross 

 them. At this season of the year, the 

 real summer in California, the countiy 

 gets green and is beautified with flowers. 

 "With the advent of March, the ground 

 dries up, vegetation dies, and by the first 

 of May, the country looks parched and 

 brown. From this time on to December, 

 the same state exists, with nearly the same 

 temperature. 



The climate, meantime, is superb. 

 Nothing any of us have ever been ac- 

 customed to will equal it. And this one 

 thing, climate, is the great charm of the 

 country. I have not heard it thunder but 

 once in six mouths, and that was a weak 

 roll. Neither have I felt any strong wind 

 during the same time. 



The nights are invariably calm, or with 

 the gentlest of low breezes wafting the 

 deliciously soft air across the sea. The 

 early mornings are often foggy and nearly 

 calm until 9 or 10 A. M., during which 

 time, if it chance to be clear, is "the hot- 

 test part of the day. Then the sea breeze 

 springs up, gently at flrst, increasing to 

 a fair breeze by 1 or 2 P. M., and then 

 dies down again— and thus will go the 

 rounds — the same thing day after day, 

 weeek after week, and month after mouth. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Undesired Experience. 



San Diego, Cal. 



G. F. Meruiam. 



All that may be known of bee-culture 

 we have aspired to know ; but we have by 

 no means aspired to obtain all our knowl- 

 edge experimentally. To verify in our 

 own little apiary what we learned from 

 Langstroth or Quinby, or from the ex- 

 perienced brethren who teach in our 

 Bee Journal, might, indeed, be delight- 

 ful ; but only within certain well-defined 

 limits. For there are heights — or rather 

 depths — of experience concerning which 

 we listened, sometimes with sympathetic 

 interest, sometimes with shuddering won- 

 der and awe — but with never the slightest 

 desire to tread such slippery paths for 

 ourselves. Afiiictions like these, we said, 

 belong to apiarists who count their 

 stocks by fifties and hundreds; not to 

 bee-keepers so small as we — bee-keepers 

 who are able to cultivate an intimate ac- 

 quaintance with each of their queens, and 

 cherish a particular affection for every 

 colony in their possession. 



But alas ! one by one, all the trials we 

 thought to escape have come upon us; 

 the elopement of swarms; the death of 

 queens beloved ; the loss of quarts of bees 

 (though not, as yet, a whole colony) by 

 disease in winter, with all the heart- 

 sickening alternations of hope and de- 

 spair attendant thereupon; and, finally, 

 most dreaded calamitj^ of all — foul 

 brood! It is of this last misfortune we 

 write. 



Early in the summer of 1874, a pair of 

 wrens with whom we were on friendly 

 and intimate terms, became the prey of 

 our cat, Zebulon. This event concerned 

 us more deeply than the reader may sup- 

 pose. It was not only that we mourned 

 the sad fate of our little tenants and 

 friends, but there was thrown upon us the 

 grave responsibility of caring for a nest- 

 full of orphaned brood. Six little clamor- 

 ous mouths called imperatively, and al- 

 most incessantly, for food. We had 

 watched the old birds closely enough to 

 learn that crickets were at this time their 

 chief dependence. So, morning, noon 

 and night — or, rather, every hour in the 

 day — we went forth in quest of crickets. 



We learned to seek them in their lurk- 

 ing places, beneath the dead bark of the 

 old stumps, and — after a time — we 

 learned how to catch them when found. 

 But, with our utmost endeavors, we could 

 not capture crickets so fast as our prote- 

 ges could dispose of them. 



What with our neglected household 

 duties, our neglected work in the apiary, 

 and the constant pitiful pleadings of our 

 little birds for " more crickets," we were 

 last becoming fit inmates for a lunatic 

 asylum when a bright thought occurred 

 to us — why not feed them on drone 

 larvai ? 



