8 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



January 



achievements in bee culture are M. 

 H. Mendleson of Ventura County; 

 Andrew Joplin, of Orange County; 

 John H. Martin, whose charming ar- 

 ticles in Gleanings under the pen- 

 name of "Rambler" have been en- 

 joyed by all readers of the magazine; 

 M. C. Richter, of the San Joaquin 

 Valley, author of the bulletins on 

 "The Honey Plants of California"; 

 Willis Lynch, instructor and apiarist 

 of Stanislaus County, and Messrs. 

 Hauser and Hogaboom, of the Sacra- 

 mento Valley. Mr. Joplin's crop of 

 extracted honey this year was about 

 25 tons from sage alone. Mr. Men- 

 dleson is probably at the present 

 • time one of the world's largest bee- 

 keepers. He came to California in 

 1880, and while he had kept bees pre- 

 vious to this, he worked with the 

 veteran apiarist, Mr. Wilkin, to 

 whom he pays this tribute: 



"Mr. Wilkin was one of the most 

 scientific, orderly and practical of 

 men. He was a good and patient 

 teacher, and was resourceful, and a 

 genius in creating conveniences. 

 It was a pleasure to work in his bee- 

 yard, everything was so clean and 

 orderly." 



Mr. Mendleson's apiary, at its larg- 

 est, contained 2.000 colonies, and his 

 largest yield for one season was 101 

 tons, taking out and extracting as 

 much as three and one-half tons in 

 one day. The cut shows his Piru 

 apiary of 700 colonies. This is on a 

 hillside among most picturesque 

 scenery, and is terraced. Each ter- 

 race contains two rows of hives fac- 

 ing the alley-way in pairs, a num- 

 bered stake between each pair, and 

 an individual record kept of each 

 colony. All queens are replaced 

 every year or two with the very best 

 Italian stock. 



Among the many younger men who 



George J. lirown, of lusUn, Lalif. 



have made notable success as api- 

 arists we will only mention two, for 

 lack of space. Mr. L. L. Andrews, of 

 Corona, son of the veteran inspector 

 of apiaries of Riverside County, and 

 George J. Brown, of Orange County. 

 L, L. Andrews got his start by dig- 

 ging 24 colonies of bees out of rock 

 caves and trees. He added to these 

 by purchase and increase until he 

 now has 1,000 colonies, and his crop 

 this year from orange and sage was 

 60 tons. Mr. Brown began as a boy, 

 some ten years ago, and now has 800 

 colonies. His crop this year was SO 

 tons. 



In the beginning of the bee busi- 

 ness in California we had several 

 problems to solve. The package prob- 

 lem seemed one of the most complex 

 at the start, but was the quickest 

 solved. We used kerosene cans 

 mostly, though some used barrels. 

 The experience of some of the bee- 

 keepers who tried barrels was har- 

 rowing to relate. I had two neigh- 

 bors who stored their honey in bar- 

 rels, waiting for a better price. They 

 never got it. All through that win- 

 ter, which was quite dry, the honey 

 leaked out just about as fast as the 

 bees could take it up. My bees went 

 through fine that winter, as they 

 were near enough to my neighbor's 

 honey barrels to use them as feeders. 

 Those of us wbo used kerosene cans 

 will never forget those days of clean- 

 ing and soldering, when preparing for 

 a honey flow. But from the ancient 

 kerosene can was evolved the mod- 

 ern honey can and case, California's 

 bequest to the extracted-honey pro- 

 ducers of the country. 



The price of honey was good, at the 

 beginning, for a few years. Then it 

 dropped very low. I remember sell- 

 ing extracted honey in 1877 for 9 

 cents, but from 1877 until about 

 1884-1885, the beekeepers were in luck 

 if their honey netted them 3 cents. 



The cause of this was exorbitant 

 freight rates, on the one hand, and 

 the treatment we received at the 

 hands of the commission men on the 

 other. In fact, matters got so bad 

 that producers quit sending their 

 honey to the commission houses. 

 That forced the buyers to come into 

 the field; and while prices were not 

 what they should be, we at least had 

 the satisfaction of selling our own 

 honey. Now the California Honey 

 Producers' Exchange bids fair to 

 solve the marketing problem. This 

 was organized over two years ago, 

 for the purpose of marketing honey 

 and buying supplies. It was organ- 

 ized with the assistance of the State 

 Market Director, and is modeled to 

 some extent on the plan of the fruit 

 exchanges. There are about 70 per 

 cent of the commercial beekeepers of 

 the State in the membership, with 

 new members coming in regularly. 

 In addition to furnishing honey in 

 carload lots to the buyers, the Ex- 

 change is now putting up honey in 

 small packages, which are being sold 

 to wholesalers, who do the distribut- 

 ing. The California Exchange is 



L. L. Andrews, ot Corona 



young, but so far is meeting with a 

 fair measure of success. 



Up to about 30 years ago most of 

 the honey of the State was produced 

 in the southern part, and exclusively 

 from wild plants. Now beekeeping 

 is a thriving industry in the north- 

 ern part, also, as well as in the large 

 interior valleys. While we still de- 

 pend upon the wild flora for our 

 mountain apiaries, the bee forage 

 along the foothills and in the valleys 

 has been largely increased by the 

 large acreage planted to oranges and 

 beans, in the coast counties, and by 

 the alfalfa fields of the interior val- 

 leys. The Sacramento and San 

 Joaquin valleys have hundreds of 

 thriving apiaries fed by alfalfa and 

 lipia. Alfalfa does not furnish nec- 

 tar in the cool coast region, to any- 

 thing like the extent that it does in 

 warm inland valleys. Another com- 

 paratively new section, rich in the 

 production of honey, as well almost 

 as other resources, is the Imperial 

 Valley, lying in the extreme south- 

 western portion of the State. This 

 valley is truly one of the wonder- 

 lands of the Southwest. A re- 

 claimed desert, as it were, but of a 

 soil rich in silt washed for ages from 

 the overflow of the Colorado River; 

 soil which only needed water to pro- 

 duce anything in the dry, warm cli- 

 mate in which it lies. Water is now 

 had in abundance, and its alfalfa 

 fields yield an ample supply of nec- 

 tar to thousands of colonies of bees. 

 While honey is not produced com- 

 mercially in all parts of California, in 

 the last twenty-five years the indus- 

 try has very materially increased. 

 We still produce almost as much 

 from the native plants, and the great 

 increase of forage from cultivated 

 plants has enabled many more to en- 

 gage in the business. The wild pas- 



