104 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



July 



NOTES FROM THE PACIFIC COAST. 



It doesn't pay in greedy way 



To live for grabbage ; 

 Nor yet awhile in Sloth most vile 



To live a cabbage. 



It is dull days now with bee-keep- 

 ers in this sunset country ; especially 

 in this southern portion of it ; less 

 than six inches of rain where we need 

 twenty or more, is a sure precursor of 

 the failure of the honey crop, or at 

 least a light yield. 



The diyersity of elevation and cli- 

 mate in our large State will enable 

 some portion of it to give its wonted 

 yield, and that will save us from the 

 humiliation of having a total fail- 

 ure. 



In now and then a locality, we find 

 that the bee-keeper is subject to the 

 nagging process, and one of the great 

 needs of the bee-keeper has been a 

 person with some authority to stand 

 between him and the fruit grower, and 

 act as a peace-maker. It causes no 

 little rancor between two great indus- 

 tries when things get to such a pass 

 that the fruit man deliberately, under 

 the cover of darkness, when evil men 

 do evil deeds, goes to the lone apiary 

 in the foothills and saturating the 

 hives with kerosine commit them to 

 to the flames. The bee-keeper might 

 retaliate by cutting down an orchard 

 or more in the same stealthy way, but 

 but to the honor of bee-keepers there 

 is no such retaliatory meanness on 

 record. Aside from fire there are 



various other ways that the bee-keep- 

 er is made to feel uncomfortable, and 

 an apiary located where it can be seen 

 for a considerable distance is sure to 

 find itself a target for the viciously 

 disposed. It is a noticable fact that 

 while certain fruit men are thus dis- 

 posed, that many of our leading bee- 

 keepers whose colonies are numbered 

 by the hundreds are also extensive 

 fruit growers ; the interests so conflict- 

 ing in other places, here run without 

 friction. If the bees eat a few grapes 

 the owners put up with it ; or if the 

 drying raisins are greatly molested 

 the trays are covered with wire 

 cloth or mosquito netting screens, and 

 all is harmony. 



It is also noticable that in all of our 

 horticultural meetings, from State to 

 county associations, there is always a 

 discussion upon the noxious parisites 

 and insects that prey upon fruits ; 

 put the honey bee is never discussed 

 in that light, on the contrary if ^here 

 is discussion at all, it is favorable to 

 the bee ; for some fruit grower has 

 made the discovery that his fruits 

 bear better crops if the bee is there to 

 perform the proper and profuse pollen- 

 ization, the fruit grower thus enlight- 

 ened feels it his duty to tell the facts 

 to the assembled association. If, per- 

 chance, a bee-keeper is in the audi- 

 ence he verily has a millenial time 

 when, "The lion and the lamb" can 

 lie down together in peace. 



California has needed more of these 

 intelligent investigators, and we feel 

 very joyful to think that hereafter 

 more of this quality of men will grow 

 in this climate. 



The bee keepers of the East thought, 

 and not without reason, that they had 



