1894 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



8^7 



age it. It soon dissipates under mortgages, 

 then there is a chance for the small farmer to 

 step in. 



At Los Olivos we encountered the whistle of 

 the locomotive again, and followed the course 

 of the rails and telegraph-poles more or less for 

 a greater portion of a day, until we entered the 

 town of Los Alamos. We had this town in 

 mind for several days, for, among the few per- 

 sons who are scattered here and there as bee- 

 keepers in Santa Barbara Co. is Mr. Joel Hil- 

 ton. ]Mrs. Hilton's name had appeared fre- 

 quently in Gleanings and various agricultural 

 papers, as a writer upon bee-keeping topics, 

 and I was quite anxious to meet her as well as 

 Mr. Hilton. After camping near our friend 

 the blacksmith, inquiries revealed the fact that 

 Mr. H. lived only half a mile from camp, and I 

 hastened to hunt him up. Mr. H. being a 

 Gleanings man, of course he knew the Ram- 

 bler, and gave a cordial welcome. Mr. H. was 

 irrigating his field of beets, and, after showing 

 me how it was done with his honest old horse 

 and home-made pumping arrangement, tank, 

 dog. children, etc., I inquired for Mrs. Hilton, 

 and I was pained to learn that she had crossed 

 the boundary into the great future only a few 

 weeks previously, leaving Mr. H. and his four 

 children in mourning. The pall had not lifted 

 from the home; and, as we find in so many 

 cases, when a loved mother and adviser is taken 

 away it is many, many months before the sun- 

 shine again lightens the home. 



outside of this there would be but little bee- 

 forage for several miles. Mr. H. has 300 colo- 

 nies of bees, in three separate apiaries; and, 

 though the yields are not ever so great as in 

 our southland, they are more certain every 

 year. He had never had his bees starve during 

 a dry season. This dry year he did not expect 

 to get much honey, but he was sure they would 

 get enough to carry them through, and possibly 

 he would get a little surplus. An examination 

 of a few of his hives showed that he was cor- 

 rect in his diagnosis, for we found new honey 

 in the combs. As a sample of what bees can do 

 here, Mr. H. had at one time increased from 40 

 to 78 colonies, and taken (5000 lbs. of honey. In 

 1893 his honey crop was 24,000 lbs., from 100 col- 

 onies, spring count; increased to 170. 



Mr. Hilton expressed himself as always a 

 lover of the bees, and to the bees he owes a debt 

 of gratitude for causing him to move from Iowa 

 to this delightful country. His bees have been 

 more profitable, considering the money and 

 time invested, than his wheat-raising. In the 

 latter crop a drouth might cause a total failure; 

 the owner would be out many days of hard 

 labor, with team, etc., also many bushels of 

 seed; but in a drouth in the bee-business there 

 are no outs — not even starved swarms, In his 

 locality. 



After our ride and talk with Mr. H. we set- 

 tled down to business among the good people of 

 Los Alamos. Over half of said good people are 

 Spaniards of all degrees of color. Our duty 



MUSICAL SPANISH FAMILY. 



From observation as we entered the Los Ala- 

 mos country, we pronounced it not a good 

 honey locality. But a ride with Mr. H. one 

 morning into the back country, away from the 

 highways, brought us into a fine sage district, 

 where the black and the purple sage seemed to 

 thrive. Mr. H. informed us that, in this por- 

 tion of Santa Barbara Co.. the sages seemed to 

 thrive in certain di.'^tricts. Several square miles 

 would sustain several hundred colonies, while 



was, to take photographs of these dark people 

 and make them look " alle-samee" white folks. 

 We had a hard time of it, as will be seen further 

 along. There were a few resident Castilian 

 Spaniards, as white as Americans. Such a 

 family of musicians we introduced to our cam- 

 era, and they show such a phase of life among 

 these musical people, in this country of bloom- 

 ing flowers and buzzing bees, that the artist 

 will give the readers a wee bit of a picture of it. 



