148 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



April 



sometimes a half meter (20 inches) or 

 thereabouts, in height. The leaves are 

 grayish or almost shriveling — or 

 frUees. The dark purple flowers are 

 in a dense ear or spike containing a 

 dozen or more. The top of the spike 

 is furnished vv-ith long bracts, same 

 color as the flowers, or sometimes 

 violet. I counted over 30 such spikes 

 on a single plant. They flower from 

 March to May and are visited by bees, 

 though not to compare with the other 

 kind. Their odor is very agreeable. 



2. Lavendula latifolia Spica. This 

 kind grows higher up — from two to 

 four hundred meters (.000 to 1320 feet) 

 above the sea level, in calcareous soil 

 — equally along the maritime line — 

 some distance inland, except where 

 the mountains fall directly into the 

 sea, as about Monte Carlo or Beau- 

 lieu. The bushes are few and far be- 

 tween. The bush proper is very low, 

 but the spikes grow up to nearly 75 

 centimeters (.2J/2 feet) and with alter- 

 nate and long, lanceolate, grayish 

 leaves, sometimes more than b centi- 

 meters long (2 inches). The flowers 

 grow in thni spikes, though elongateid 

 at the top of the stems, bluish in 

 color. They flower about June and 

 sometimes till the end of July. Bees 

 visit them when other flowers are 

 scarce. 



, The plants are sometimes mistaken 

 for true lavender; but on nearer ex- 

 amination, and by the odor rather 

 than by the flowers, they are recog- 

 nized. They are also used for per- 

 fume, but only when the other kind 

 is wanting. 



3. Lavendula officinalis, vers. These 

 are the queens of flower and per- 

 fume. The bushes are usually very 

 denisely covered with very odorifer- 

 ous leaves, longer than in Stoechas 

 but shorter than in Spica. As a rule, 

 they grow only above 400 meters 

 (1320 feet) above the sea level and 

 up to 2,000 meters (6600 feet). They 

 do not like the forests, as do the other 

 two congeneres, but seem to be 

 wholly independent and want the 

 whole field for themselves. The bushes 

 sliow any number of flower stetns, 

 growing up to half a meter, each 

 stem crowned with a dense spike of 

 bluish flowers, beginning to open to- 

 wards the end of June. Though some 

 plants may slip down till near the- sea, 

 they are never worth while for bee 

 fodder. Whilst all the arid mountains 

 are covered witli millions of bushes, 

 mostly growing wild, they give the 

 most delicious honey of a yellowish 

 amber or whitish color. The peasants 

 gather them in donkey loads and sell 

 them by the hundred kilos for the 

 Grasse perfumes, or some enterpris- 

 ing peasant distils them, on the spot, 

 near running water. This distilling 

 is done in the open air, as during the 

 long summer months, in our southern 

 climate, there is never a drop of rain. 

 An alembic (still) is set up, and the 

 lavender is boiled then and there. 



The prices vary very much. Before 

 1914 they were paid from .'' to 10 

 francs per hundred kilos (44 to 90 

 cents per hundred weight). In 1920 

 the peasants left everything to go 



for lavender, as some speculators paid 

 them over a hundred francs per hun- 

 dred kilos ($9 per cwt.). A good 

 hand with a mule or a donkey to 

 carry the bundles, can gather ISO 

 kilos or over in a day. The mountain 

 sides are so abrupt that not all can 

 be reached — a good chance for the 

 beekeepers — since they are cut in the 

 honey season. Happily, there are, in 

 some places, more flowers than hands 

 to cut them and the bees are happy as 

 well as the beekeeper. 



In the Basses-Alpes, Vaucluse and 

 other places, they are cultivated on a 

 high scale for perfumery. 



UINTAH BASIN BEES 



By Frank L. Arnold 



Transcontinental tourists who 

 traveled this summer from Denver to 

 Salt Lake by the Pike's Peak high- 

 way may have noted an unusual 

 honey flow in the two Utah cotinties 

 of Uintah and Duchesne, two coun- 

 ties that have always been famous 

 for the abundance and quality of 

 their honey. These two counties lie 

 in what is known as the Uintah ba- 

 sin, and are made up of a former In- 

 dian reservation lying in the Du- 

 chesne valley and of the land in the 

 Ashley and Green River valleys. 

 Here bee conditions are among the 

 best in the United States, and have 

 two unique features in the bee world. 

 The average flow of honey is certain 

 every year and the beekeeper on a 

 small scale is encouraged to entrust 

 his colonies to experts and to share 

 in the returns rather than to care 

 for them himself. 



The country rolls in sweet clover 

 and alfalfa bloom. Mr. Dan H. Hill- 

 man, President of the Uintah County 

 Bee Association, said in July that he 

 could not work fast enough to give 

 his bees room; that he often had to 

 put on as many as five supers, and 

 that the Uintah Basin honey flow 

 never was a failure, though it was 

 often less than this year. This, ac- 

 cording to Mr. Hillman, is the car- 

 dinal excellence of the country as 

 a bee pasture. It ofifsets the long, 

 cold winters, when only bees win- 

 tered in cellars do well, and there is 

 much loss from spring dwindling. 

 He, himself, has spent three winters 

 in California, looking for a better 

 bee country, but has been unable to 

 ■find it, though he studied the Im- 

 perial Valley, the Los Angeks and 

 San, Luis Obispo districts with great 

 care. California, according to him, 

 often has a greater honey flow than 

 these two Utah counties, but it often 

 has an entire failure, while Utah is a 

 surer average country. Even in the 

 poorest season, the Uintah basin has 

 an average of 87 pounds per colony, 

 with some colonies producing as high 

 as 120 pounds. Most summers there 

 are tons of nectar going to waste and 

 you can see miles of sweet clover 

 l)loom by the roadside and ten-acre 

 tracts without a l)ee on them. 



Of course, nearly everyone keeps 

 bees, but the cattle man and the hay 

 rancher are naturally not so expert 



in the work as the professional bee- 

 man. So it has been the policy of the 

 county agent, backed up by the farm 

 bureau, to encourage the small in- 

 expert beekeeper to take his bees to 

 an experienced beeman, who will look 

 after them carefully and return a 

 certain share of the profits to the 

 owner. Thus Mr. Hillman took last 

 year a lot of 20 colonies, hived in 

 candy buckets, soap boxes, coal oil 

 cases and other makeshift hives. He 

 put them into movable-frame hives, 

 which the owner paid for, cared for 

 them through the season and re- 

 turned to the owner 30 pounds per 

 colony, and, like a good cattle man, 

 was ready to make the old stock 

 good. 



This, Mr. Hillman thinks, is a fair 

 contract between the expert and the 

 inexpert ,and in such contracts he 

 sees a necessary condition to making 

 the Uintah Basin a banner bee coun- 

 try. Some foulbrood has been 

 brought in from Salt Lake City, and 

 only experts can control it. In like 

 manner only e-xperts can handle a 

 colony so that it will produce its 

 limit, and it is an old principle that 

 a cobbler should stick to his last. 

 Some people were never meant to 

 work with bees, and never can learn. 



With regard to the marketing of 

 honey,Uintah Basin has still much to 

 learn. It is mostly sold in 5-gaIlon 

 cans and, though tlie automobile 

 tourist will eventually want as much 

 as that, it looks big to him for a first 

 taste. There are no posters along 

 the highway exalting the excellence 

 of Uintah's sweet clover honey, and 

 many tourists who stop at the public 

 camps are apt to pass through with- 

 out knowing that they are in a honey 

 country. If they stop at a hotel they 

 are pretty sure to get the honey on 

 their hot cakes. It would be excel- 

 lent advertising for the commercial 

 clubs to present every tourist with 

 a small jar of the honey. It would 

 make him a life-long booster for the 

 honey. 



France has her wine always on the 

 table, Normandy drinks cider like 

 water, and the United States would 

 do well to adopt the Swiss custom 

 of the breakfast honey pot. Utah 

 honey could easily become more fa- 

 mous than Utah celery. At Mof- 

 fatt, near Duchesne, one of the best 

 ranchers, with bees as a side issue, 

 is C. W. Bodily. He and his wife are 

 making money from bees and tur- 

 keys, though their chief object in 

 life is a l(X)-acre hay ranch. Mr. 

 Bodily has worked with bees ever 

 since he was a child and says that 

 never in the history 'of the world 

 has there been honey like that which 

 the bees gather from the sweet clo- 

 ver around Fort Duchesne. And 

 you'll say the same if you taste of it. 

 It often brings 50 cents a pound in 

 Denver, and customers cry for it. 

 The bees work on the sweet clover 

 in preference to alfalfa, and the 

 honey is less sharp than alfalfa 

 honey and sweetens as it ages. Peo- 

 ple that never care for other honey, 

 like it. 



