330 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1. 



have pure stock, on account of the general 

 prevalence of the German bees thioughout the 

 United States.] 



BAMBLE NO. 58. 



IN THE SAGE BRUSH. 



The Hotel Temescal is the center around 

 which South Riverside revolves. The South 

 Riverside Land and Water Company have de- 

 veloped a water supply from canyon and from 

 artesian wells, and propose to make a city equal 

 to famous Riverside, fifteen miles to the north. 

 South Riverside has a population of about 800, 

 is rapidly growing, and so are the hundreds of 

 acres of young orange and lemon trees; and in 

 time the town will amount to something. 



I inquired of mine host whether he knew 

 where Mr. Edward Bonfoey lived; and in the 

 morning he conducted me to the west end of the 

 hotel veranda, and, pointing across the mesa to 

 the Santa Ana Mountains, said he. "Mr. Bon- 

 foey lives in that white house on that plateau 

 away up on the side of the mountain.'' 



"Well," said I, "Mr. B. roosts in an elevated 

 position. I should say that I have a two-mile 

 walk to get there." 



"Yes; and when you walk it you will find it 

 over four miles. The atmosphere is so clear in 

 this country that objects many miles away ap- 

 pear not half the distance they really are. A 

 mountain twenty miles away appears really to 

 be only ten." 



I soon started for Mr. B.'s by rapidly putting 

 one foot before the other across the mesa. 



Another beauty of this new country is its 

 fenceless condition. There are no little stifled 

 two-acre lots hegded in by stone walls, rail 

 fences, and hedge-rows of elders and briers: 

 but the pedestrian can strike across the country 

 in a bee-line for the object to be attained, and 

 find but few obstructions to his onward march. 

 After an invigorating walk of about an hour 

 the foot of the mountain was attained. A sharp 

 climb of about half a mile up a graded zigzag 

 road put me on the plateau and at the residence 

 of my friends with whom I had become ac- 

 quainted at the convention in Los Angeles. I 

 was greeted by two not very ferocious dogs and 

 Mr. and Mrs. Bonfoey. The residence of our 

 friends is like thousands of such houses in Cali- 

 fornia where the family has started a home and 

 is improving the wild surroundings to make it 

 some time in the future a place of beauty and 

 value. The house is a simple one-story cottage, 

 with front and rear room with canvas partition, 

 and a lean-to for a kitchen. The visitor needs 

 a little caution about leaning back against the 

 walls. An inadvertent leaning against the can- 

 vas would result in the catastrophe of suddenly 

 going into the next room unannounced. The 

 houses here are not built for warmth, but mere- 

 ly for a place to gather to at meal time and at 

 night, and the Rambler has seen scores of houses 

 in the erabi-yo form of a tent, and others with a 

 light frame covered with cotton cloth. 



We soon visited the apiary, and were met 

 several rods away by several skirmishers. They 

 followed us in, and, with their reinforcements, 

 obliged us to resort to veils and smoke. Mr. 

 Bonfoey and wife have a joint apiary of about 

 260 colonies. 



There is a little spice of romance in the estab- 

 lishment of this apiary. Mr. B.. a young man, 

 had a small apiary, so also had a young lady 

 schoolteacher some bees. They put them to- 

 gether and ran them for a season. But it hap- 

 pened after a while that the young man, every 

 time he tasted honey, would think how sweet 

 that schoolteacher looked with that gypsy hat 



on; and the teacher, every time a bee passed by 

 her, imagined it to be a Cupid. Such a condi- 

 tion of things naturally led to the calling-in of 

 the parson, arid, noiv thdt (ipkiry is just hoom- 

 ing. The apiary is very nicely located on a 

 little plateau down the mountain from the resi- 

 dence. It has the usual California honey-house. 

 a building about 10x12. a honey-tank, and a 

 large sun extractor. Mr. and Mrs. B. manage 



THE BONFOEYS' APIAKV IN CALIFORNIA. 



their apiary for comb honey, and put upon the 

 market a gilt-edged article. Their yield dur- 

 ing the past season was light; but the bees were 

 in good shape for another year. At the time of 

 our visit, about Nov. 1. they were flying very 

 lively, but getting no honey." October and No- 

 vember are the dryest months of the year; the 

 long dry season is near its end, and rains are 

 soon expected, to replenish the earth again. 



This apiary is in the genuine sage district; 

 and to my inexperienced eyes the pasturage 

 seemed to be unlimited. The flowers that yield 

 honey here are, first, in March, alHlaree. moun- 

 tain mahogany, lilac, and manzanita; in April 

 and May. balled sage and white sage; and, a 

 little later, sumac and wild buckwheat. It 

 would be impossible to adequately describe the 

 acreage of these plants. The apiary is at the 

 entrance to the Hagadorn canyon. Let us 

 ramble for a mile into its winding way and be- 

 hold nature's handiwork. The entrance is quite 



" WHEN THE EXTRACTOR DIDN'T ' GIVE DOWN ' 

 IT WAS KICKED ALL OVER THE APIARY." 



broad; and out of it, and extending far across 

 the mesa, is the dry bed of a creek (dry now, 

 but a torrent in the rainy season), and called 

 the iros?i ; and wherever you find it there is an 



