694 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 15. 



produced some forty odd tons of honey the last 

 good season— two years ago — does not have 

 frames in the brood-chambers of his hives, but 

 just two crossed sticks, as in the old box hive. 



A CONFIRMED SET OF HEATHEN. 



I am writing this from Needles, Cal., a place 

 which A. I. R. should have stopped at if he is 

 interested in Indians. Unlike those he saw at 

 San Jacinto, these do not go to school. In fact, 

 they are such a confirmed set of heathens that I 

 am told even missionaries have given them up. 

 Needles is a railroad town, and it may be the 

 counter-influence and example which the pop- 

 ulation of such a town supplies which is too 

 much for Mr. Missionary, more than the con- 

 firmed heathenism of the Indian. Christianity 

 would certainly be to their worldly advantage, 

 as their own religious rites demand the burning 

 of all their houses, clothes, and other property, 

 on the death of a relative, while their horses are 

 killed for the feast which follows. As for the 

 burning of their houses, I do not know but that 

 it would be a good thing, from a sanitary point 

 of view, if each householder were to lose a rela- 

 tive every month or so. as the stink which ema- 

 nates from a long-settled house can hardly be 

 equaled elsewhere on this earth. A pig-sty is a 

 bed of violets in comparison. That their health 

 suffers from so much filth is proven by the great 

 number who are marked by smallpox. The 

 faces of many of them are so full of holes that 

 they resemble a big sponge more than anything 

 else. All Indians seem fond of bright colors, 

 and some are more gaudy with them than any 

 bird. I wish I could describe a squaw I saw 

 yesterday. For brilliancy, rainbows and sun- 

 sets must take a back seat. Even her face was 

 painted the reddest of red. I saw one boy who 

 had gilded his face. Others have theirs striped 

 with various colors. Some one has expressed 

 the opinion that the Indians are descendants of 

 the ten lost tribes of Israel. Is not that the- 

 ory sustained by their love of colors? Did not 

 Jacob present his favorite son with a coat of 

 many colors? The bucks do considerable work 

 in one way and another. I saw one gang going 

 out on a hand -car to repair some railroad track. 

 The roustabouts on the little steamboats which 

 run on the Colorado River are all Indians. Yes- 

 terday a big six-foot buck, making pretense at 

 cleaning up a yard, under a shady tree of which 

 another man and myself were sleeping, affected 

 great contempt for us, and remarked to his em- 

 ployei', •' Heap lazy mans— all same squaw." 

 But " all same." Pete. I believo you were envi- 

 ous of us, and would have been infinitely more 

 happy snoozing under that tree than gathering 

 up rubbish. Of an evening the stores here are 

 literally overrun with the Indians : and any 

 money which they may become possessed of is 

 very quickly in the hands of the merchants. 

 They are very fond of driving a bargain. I saw 

 a young squaw bargain for some minutes with 

 a Dago, over the price of a watermelon; and it 

 finally turned out, when she had jewed him 

 down to her figure, that she did not have a pen- 

 ny. Nor did the evident disgust of the Dago at 

 the unprofitable result of so much bickering 

 worry her in the least. Wm. G. Hewes. 



Newhall, Cal., Aug. 2.5. 



[Your suggestions on our method of introduc- 

 ing queens are good, and perhaps we had better 

 incorporate them in the introducing directions 

 for all queens sent to a distance. We expect, 

 liowever. in the majority of cases, that the re- 

 cipient of the queen at a distance will either 

 slightly modify our directions to suit his own 

 case, or else, as is more commonly the case, will 

 use a method of introduction with which he is fa- 

 miliar, and with which he has had good results.] 



BIG YIELDS PER COLONY IN CALIFORNIA. 



I note Mr. Hewes' good common-sense article 

 on page 542, in which he says 419 lbs. per colo- 

 ny is the largest yield he knows of, etc. I show- 

 ed the article to Mr. T. C. Porter, who managed 

 the San Fernando ranch in Los Angeles County, 

 Cal., from 1874 to 1880. This ranch is only nine 

 miles from Mr. Hewes' place at Newhall. Mr. 

 Porter says he rented a small piece of land to a 

 Mr. Loap, about a mile northeast of the San 

 Fernando depot, in 1876. he thinks, on which 

 were placed 80 colonies of strong hybrid bees. 

 The whole region was covered with white sage 

 and other flowers, and the range was almost un- 

 limited at that time. Mr. Loap took from those 

 80 colonies a little over 444 lbs. each that season. 

 He had in all 350 colonies In thiee different 

 places in the immediate vicinity, from which he 

 took in all over (38 tons of honey tliat crop. Of 

 this, about 40 tons was sent to London on a ven- 

 ture, and netted half a cent above the local mar- 

 ket; but, strange to say, the best pure water- 

 white honey brought less than the darker and 

 heavier grades in the London market, and they 

 evidently thought the light-colored honey had 

 been doctored. At that time the bee-ranges 

 were not half-occupied; but now there are over 

 3000 colonies in that immediate vicinity. 



Honolulu, S. I., Aug. 14. J. Farnsworth. 



CULTIVATE THE HABIT OF OBSERVATION. 



IT IS NECESSARY FOR THE BEE-KEEPER AS 

 WELL AS THE FARMER. 



Isn't it strange that so many people go through 

 this world without observing the little things 

 about them? Farmers, especially, fail to 

 notice many interesting things in natrure with 

 which they constantly come in contact. I have 

 talked with many farmers about the fertiliza- 

 tion of flowers by bees and bumble-bees, and I 

 do not now remember one who had any idea 

 that they were indebted to the honey-gathering 

 insects for the complete fertilization of the 

 clovers. Although constantly in the fields, 

 and. may be, aware that bumble-bees visit 

 their red clover, they had not given them any 

 credit for the work done in insuring a crop of 

 seed. The nests, perhaps, are destroyed on 

 sight. I venture the assertion, that nine out of 

 ten farmers fail to give bees any credit for their 

 valuable aid to agriculture. They have been 

 reared in the midst of the most wonderful ex- 

 hibitious of divine wisdom and beneficence, 

 with the faculty of observation as blind as a bat. 



There is one argument in favor of bee-keeping 

 that ought not to be lost sight of— it trains the 

 mind to observe. If he would make a success, 

 the bee-keeper mu.st train this faculty. If ed- 

 ucation consists in storing the mind with facts, 

 and if observation leads one to investigate, 

 prove, and apply, it is as good as a school so far 

 as it goes. This is probably the reason that a 

 successful bee-keeper is above the average in 

 intelligence. He has learned to observe, and 

 hence is continually gathering new facts and 

 adding to his store of knowledge. If a person 

 doesn't know the average season for white 

 clover and linden to bloom, he is not likelv to 

 know when to put on supers or to be on the 

 lookout for swarms: and if he doesn't know 

 the source from whence comes this honey, he is 

 likely to put on supers till frost comes. It 

 sounds odd enough to charge bee-keepers with 

 such a lack of bee-lore; but I know of persons 

 who keep bees, and who are as ignorant of es- 

 sentials as that. It is not necessary to add, 

 that such persons never study books or papers 

 on the subject, and that they never succeed. 



