301 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUllE. 



Apr. 



Water, whether in the sea or on land, is slowly 

 transformed into invisible vapor, which, beinn 

 niucli ligliter than air— as 3: .5— rises, and is diffused 

 througli every part of the atmosphere. Thus the 

 latter becomes tlie ;g-reat reservoir of acjueous va- 

 pors. 



My oi)iuion is, that the Scientific American 

 lias made a mistake, or that they haven't got 

 liold ot the question aslved by J. A. G. And, 

 by tlie way, is it not our bee-friend J. A. 

 Green who propounds tiiese inquiries? If 

 invisible vapor is lighter than air, to the ex- 

 tent of the proportion of 3 to 5, no wonder it 

 lises and forms clouds. It may be said, the 

 vapor rises and not the air, but I think this 

 can not be true. 



BUILDING UP A BEE-RANCH. 



HOW IT WAS DONE IN C.VLIFORNIA. 



TN November, 1S83, 1 was teaching school near the 

 (^It central part of Ventura Co., in Southern Cal- 

 ]|t ifornia. Three seasons before, I had purchased 

 ''■^ an apiary which I ran for two years, and then 

 sold out. Some of my neighbors, knowing I 

 was interested in bees, offered several colonies to 

 nie at my own price. I paid from $1.00 to f 1.10 

 apiece for fourteen colonics, returning the hives. 

 I afterward pui-chased si.v more, paying 100 lbs. of 

 honey for each colony when the original colony 

 would make it. These last were bought after it was 

 certain the season would be very good. I took out 

 over 300 lbs. per colonj% and increased my bees to 

 130 colonies in the spring of 1884. This honey, most 

 (;f which was very fine, I sold at 4, ili, and 5 cents 

 per lb., net. Before the honey season was over I 

 was obliged to move my bees out of the valley, on 

 account of the fruit, the danger to teams, etc. 

 Thc^ weather was so warm, and the roads so rough, 

 that I lost 10 colonics in moving them about 20 

 miles. 



The ne.\t year I took out alH)ut 4 ) lbs. to the col- 

 ony and increased only 17 colonies. This was a 

 poor yield. But veri' few bcc-lcecpers made any 

 lionej' last year. This year every thing looks as 

 favorable as in 1884. ISIy e.vpenscs so far have been 

 for hives, wliich cost mo about $1..5) each; a honey- 

 tank, holding 3 tons, cost mo $2.).O0; an extractor, 

 «;~'5.00; ahoney-hous:>, 16X16, two stories, .11=160, and 

 lioney - knives, smokers, wheelbarrows, heaters, 

 foundation-machine, etc., about $50 more; so at the 

 end of this season 1 sliall have, lyobably, 300 colo- 

 nies and .*t'0) invested in the ajiiary and fl.xturcs. 

 With si.\ years' experience, 1 can say that this in- 

 vestment will yield me on an average about 1630 a 

 year above e.vpenscs (not reckoning my own labor). 

 I do not believe it will be profitable to keep more 

 than 300 colonies upon my range, though there 

 arc places wliere they keep three or four times as 

 many, and average ten or twelve tons of honey a 

 year. 



In 1883 1 looked around for a place where I could 

 both keep bees and raise fruit. After many days' 

 hunting In the mountains I found a canon a mile or 

 more long, about 1500 feet above the ocean, and 15 

 miles inland. There are about 130 acres of plow-land 

 in the canon, or little valley. The soil is very rich, 

 and the surrounding hills are covered with alttleria, 

 mustard, sage, clover, and other flowers. The feed 

 is very fine for stock, but there is neither wood nor 

 water on the place. 



I rented the plac3 to a now comer, agreeing to 



build him a cabin and give him all he could make 

 upon the place for plowing the land and taking care 

 of my young trees. I put out 14 acres of fruit-trees, 

 at a cost of about $30.00 per acre, planting apples, 

 poaches, jilums, prunes, apricots, pears, almonds, 

 and nectarines. Trees mature so cjuickly hero that 

 mine, planted in March, 1884, produced some fruit 

 h'st year, and this year are so full of blooms that I 

 expect several tons of fruit. The value of what on 

 orchard will yield each year in California is estimat- 

 ed at from $10 Uo $3000, the smaller number being 

 usually much nearei-the truth. The profits i'rom or- 

 chards are often given, as with bees, by taking one 

 tree (one colony) and calculating what 100 to the 

 acre would yield in like proportion. 



1885 was a dry year. To the first 160 acres I took 

 up as a timber-culture claim, I then added 16J acres 

 more as a homestead. The one who had rented my 

 place the year before took it again on similar terms, 

 giving me what I wished for my own use from the 

 crop. He had (;ultivated about .50 acres of beans, 

 corn, etc., making 1000 lbs. of beans to the acre 

 (worth 3 cents per lb.), 30 centals of corn, etc. In 

 18S5 the crop was much poorer, mainly because of 

 a lack of proper tillage. This year I farm my own 

 place, and the i)rospects are very bright for a large 

 yield. What do you think east, of 60 bushels of 

 corn to the acre, raised without onCdrop of rain 

 from the time it is planted until after it is ripe"? 

 In my garden are two-year old tomato-vines, still 

 blooming and bearing as they have for every month 

 in the year. Charles M. Drake. 



Springvillc, Veijtura Co., Cal. 



SURPLUS HONEY IN BOXES. 



SO.VK NEW THOUGHTS FROM FRIEND DOOLITTLE, 

 IN REGARD TO STARTING THE BEES IN 



SECTIONS. 



0N page 181 of Gleanings, present volume, I 

 find these words: "The most difficult prob- 

 lem I find in bee-keeping is how to make bees 

 store surplus honey in boxes." As this was 

 once the perplexing problem with me also, I 

 thought perhaps by telling how I had solved it so I 

 have no more trouble along that line, I might bene- 

 fit some of mj' fellow-apiarists. 



At first I tried the plan, so often given, of taking 

 boxes from such colonies as had commenced work 

 in them, and placing said boxes, bees and all, on the 

 colonies which still refused to work, and in this way 

 I was generally successful; but occasionally a col- 

 ony would not yield to such persuasion. After try- 

 ing various plans on these obstinate ones, I at last 

 hit upon a plan which always brought any colony to 

 terms. It was this: I went to a colony which had 

 asurplus of drone-brood, and cut out a piece of said 

 brood, fitting it in a single box or section, putting 

 this section in the center of all those on the hive. Im- 

 mediately the bees would enter this section to pro- 

 tect this brood, which resulted in a start being made 

 in the sections all about it. The great objection to 

 this plan is tlie trouble, and the gettingof an inferior 

 grade of honey where this brood was. As 1 did not 

 like these two objections, I fell to studying, the re- 

 sult of which was that the next year found me re- 

 ducing the size of my hives by means of dummies, 

 or division-boards, so that the brood should be close 

 to the sections, as was the case when the drone- 

 brood was used. Upon looking over all these ob- 



