70 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



May 





Editor American Bee-Keeper, 

 Dear Sir : — Our surplus season is 

 over once more, and although not a 

 big crop it is sufficient to keep the wolf 

 from the door until the flowers open 

 their buds once more and send forth 

 their loads of sweets to quench the 

 ever dry throats of those little things, 

 who are the wonder of all who have 

 time to stop and consider them. From 

 400 hives with bees in them (that is 

 not 400 full swarms,) we have taken 

 46 casks of extracted honey, or about 

 5,500 gallons, and although the price 

 of honey is too low to make us feel at 

 all happy and the past season was a 

 poor one, we wish the world at large 

 to khow that we are still on top and 

 hope to stay there, and we claim the 

 largest and finest apiary in the world 

 as far as reports go. In good seasons 

 bees fly from 600 hives, and in the 

 best part af the season (January and 

 February) the hum of our 21 frame 

 steam extractor makes music that is 

 welcome to every bee-keeper's ears, 

 and though the days are short and 

 there is only 8-J or 9 hours in which 

 to work, it throws out with ease 2,300 

 pounds a day, and in fact we could 

 extract our whole crop in one week if 

 there were hands enough to feed it. 



Now that our people have got their 

 thoughts sweetened with pine-apple 

 sufficient to last them a few years the 

 once golden hue of the once enormous 

 price has kept fading until now there 

 is no hue left. It is black and very 



black at that. No longer do we see 

 them talking in groups or hear the 

 cry," Plant pine-apples ! Plant pine- 

 apples ! " No longer do we hear the 

 weary little native at the peep of day 

 swinging his knife with destructive 

 force to help one man's poverty and 

 help another's riches while the ox fol- 

 lows in the distance. Or rather no ! 

 The ox is being fatted for beef while 

 the plow leans against some tree and 

 the man is in the creek up to his neck 

 fishing with a net in the vain hopes 

 of getting a haul of fish, for which he 

 will get SI. 20 for 25 pounds, 10 pounds 

 being a good day's work for three of 

 them. Thus they make 20c a piece. 

 " There is a limit to everything," so 

 they say, and there is to the pine-apple 

 craze, which started about eight years 

 ago. Last year they got to shipping 

 them at the rate of 2,000,000 barrels 

 in a season of about four months, and 

 what can be done with them all is a 

 question that has been asked time and 

 again but has not been answered. 



Unless we are taken with some un- 

 expected sickness or have some mis- 

 fortune we will have next season 600 

 swarms ready for the harvest as fast 

 as it flows from the flowers, which 

 never stop blooming in this land of 

 the evergreen. In October the flowers 

 down here begin to open their buds to 

 share the cool refreshing winter air 

 and to mingle their perfume with that 

 of a few other of their companions 

 until away long in the summer. I do 

 not think there is a month in the year 

 when flowers of some kind cannot be 

 found. Our rose bushes are full of 

 bloom the year round and we have to 

 get up on the house to gather the 

 flowers. All of these flowers put more 



