630 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 1. 



pans, and the probable scorching and spoiUng 

 of some wax — a result that is quite liable to 

 take place with the ordinary amateur. Medi- 

 um brood factory-made foundation in lots of 

 50 pounds would cost |3.20, leaving a balance 

 in your favor of G-i cents — that is, providing 

 we do not figure in the cost of the Rietsche 

 press, express on the same, mus.ing up, soil- 

 ing of pots and kettles, and the possibility of 

 ruining some wax. 



If you have saved Go cents, you have a pro- 

 portionately inferior article of foundation. It 

 is clumsy and brittle, as is all cast wax. 

 Careful examination of the sample foundation 

 you sent shows that there is a fearful waste of 

 wax in the bases, and not enough side-wall to 

 make the bees take it quickly. That being 

 the case, it is ver}- evident that light brood 

 foundation, factory-made, would not only be 

 just as good but just as cheap — yes, far cheap- 

 er — if we include the incidental items referred 

 to. Forty-nine sheets of the latter will cost 

 about 12.57, and the foundation that you made 

 would cost $2.br>. 



I carefully tested, by heat, factory -made 

 light brood and the Rietsche sample sent, and 

 found that the former was not only tougher, 

 but could resist heat fully as well. 



To argue that a bee-keeper can afford to 

 make his own foundation would be like trjdng 

 to prove that a small flour-mill could compete 

 with one of the great establishments of the 

 countr}^ or that the old-fashioned cobbler 

 could make a pair of shoes as cheaply as the 

 great shoe-factories. You mav be able to so 

 place the figures as to make a strong case ; 

 but you can not get around the fact that even 

 the small manufacturers of foundation have 

 generally given up the trade to the large man- 

 ufacturers, for the reason that they can buy 

 cheaper than they can make it. What is true 

 of the small manufacturers would be more 

 true of the consumer. 



I am not tr^-ing to show that bee-keepers 

 ought to buy Root's, Dadant's, or the founda- 

 tion of anybody else, rather than to make it, 

 for the sake of bolstering up the sup]>ly busi- 

 ness ; but I do think it would be about as 

 foolish for one to make his own foundation as 

 for him to try to make his own clothes. There 

 has been a great deal of money wasted by a 

 good man}' people trying to make their own 

 things "to save manufacturers' profits," in- 

 stead of sending to the factory and getting 

 something much better, and usually for less 

 money. Some bee-keepers even now are fool- 

 ish enough to try to make their own hives 

 and brood-frames. If the}- wdll be careful 

 enough to figure, they would see that the)' are 

 probabl}' paying as much for their lumber to 

 make a certain number of hives as they would 

 have to pay for the same lumber at the hive- 

 factory, all neatly and accurately cut up, and 

 ready to nail together. 



I wish I could say these things in some 

 other journal than our own ; for as it is, at 

 least some will shake their heads and say, 

 " He has got an ax to grind." Perhaps some 

 of our readers will think I am taking a good 

 deal of space for either side of this qiiestion ; 

 but Gleanings believes in free speech, and 



in letting both sides have a hearing up to a 

 rea.sonable limit. 



MIGRATORY BEE-KEEPING IN CALIFORNIA. 



Some of the Difficulties ; Large and Small Wagons 

 for the Purpose. 



BV C. A. HATCH. 



To one living in the East it seems marvelous 

 and all sunshine and pleasantness when he 

 reads of the great yields of hone}- in this 

 country. But California bee-keeping has its 

 drawbacks as well as any other country. The 

 first thing noticeable to a new comer is the 

 fact that scarcely any bee-keeper lives where 

 he keeps his bees. This of itself makes the 

 bee-man at least migratory, even if his bees 

 are not. The reason for this is that few of the 

 good honey-yielding plants grow on land 

 suitable for farming, and usually of no great 

 value except for stock-ranges; and, further, 

 while California produces many honey-plants, 

 there are but few locations where more than 

 one are available; therefore the successful 

 bee-man must be prepared to emigrate to pas- 

 tures new when one place has been worked; 

 and when a dry season comes he must be 

 ready to take advantage of any chance honey- 

 flow he may hear of. 



My experience has been confined to the 

 Santa Clara Valley. Here we find most of the 

 bee-keepers live in the towns, and move from 

 place to place, sometimes going as far as 100 

 miles from home. Many ai-e single men with 

 no families, and camp anywhere during the 

 bee-season. Some go to the mountains during 

 the sage-bloom, and then either move to the 

 coast to the bean-fields, where lima beans are 

 grown by the thousand acres, or go still fur- 

 ther away from the coast to get California 

 buckwheat or buckbush honey, which is a 

 white fine honey, and nothing like our eastern 

 buckwheat. 



The kind of wagon usually used is a com- 

 mon farm wagon or a large freight-wagon 

 needing four to six horses to draw it. M. H. 

 Meniileson, who moves more than any other 

 bee-man I know of, has built special racks for 

 the purpose, suited to large wagons and large 

 teams; but either small wagons or large ones 

 are open to objections. It takes too long to 

 move with two-horse teams, and the large 

 wagons are too unwieldy with their long string 

 of horses to go every place that it may be 

 required to go" to. Most of the apiaries are in 

 the parts of" the country where roads are not 

 of the best, and there are always many risks 

 by rocks, floods, quicksands, etc. 



The bees are prepared for moving, first, by 

 extracting all from the supers if run for ex- 

 tracting; or, if for comb, all supers are remov- 

 ed, and each hive must have not less than 

 four empty frames in the brood-nest, and, if 

 moved at the close of sage-bloom, an empty 

 extracting-super having alternate empty combs 

 and empty frames is put on. Second, the 

 entrance is closed with a screen, and a frame 

 covering the whole top of the hive, covered 

 with wire screen, is put on. This screen cover 



