1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



751 



does not have to be so light-colored this season 

 to pass for " water-white "as it usually does. 



The yield oi honey in the hundreds of miles 

 of the San Joaquin Valley varied from nothing 

 at all to 100 lbs. or more to the hive. At Los 

 Banos, 150 miles north of me, L. E. Mercer, 

 with his r i00 hives, and others, sterned to fare 

 about as I did. About Bakersfield, 25 miles 

 south, where water is more abundant, and ma- 

 laria mere common, ihe flow of honey is much 

 more abundant this season. I preferred to 

 dodge malaria and take my chances on less 

 hone) 1 . 



My stay in the valley impressed me strongly 

 with the fact that alfalfa, yielding such an ex- 

 traordinary amount of food for animals, will, 

 in the mar future, be cultivated wherever con- 

 ditions favor its growth, which will surely be 

 followed by the bee-keeper to secure its won- 

 derful yields of honey, which, if not the most 

 popular, is a very fine honey. I expect here- 

 after to hear of bee keepers crowding each 

 other in the alfalfa-fields, which are only be- 

 ginning to be fully appreciated. 



The heat in the San Joaquin Valley runs 

 high, so that bee-keepers usually place their 

 hives in rows five or six feet apart, facing 

 away from each other, leaving hives only ten 

 or fifteen inches apart in the rows. The bee- 

 keeper works in the street between the rows, 

 causing much loss of queens returning from 

 their fertilizing-trips. A shed 10 or 12 feet 

 wide, of boards, brush, or straw, supported 

 on posts 7 feet high, covers these two rows 

 and the street between them, making a very 

 pleasant place to work in hot weather. Occa- 

 sionally these covers catch fire. The result is, 

 the apiary is burned. I used the precaution 

 to cover mine with " Cabott W." muslin sup- 

 ported on wire. Drill or duck would be more 

 serviceable, being easily removed when the 

 hot weather is over. 



I kept a hive on scales all the season, and 

 observed that, when the thermometer rose 

 from 80 to 100°, bees collected most honey ; 

 above that, the amount diminished, so that at 

 110 to 116° almost nothing was gained, and in 

 some cases the sealed brood was killed, re- 

 maining in the cells the rest of the season, 

 seriously damaging the hives. Younger brood 

 may have been killed and cleaned out without 

 my noticing it. Heavy combs of honey in 

 hives without bees, but in the shade, began to 

 melt down. 



Spiders and ants are serviceable in hives 

 of combs without bees on them. For three 

 months I did not find a living worm on my 

 thousands of empty combs, in the hottest of 

 the season. Wherever the moths would start, 

 the ants seemed to be present to eat them. 

 Query : Is it practical to cultivate ants to sup- 

 press the moth ? I know that many would like 

 to suppress the ants. 



I made one quite objectionable blunder this 

 season. I have concluded that, when I have 

 to live alone or in the mountains with my 

 bees, as so many California bee-keepers do, I 

 shall make my surroundings as comfortable as 

 possible. I accordingly built myself the neat- 

 est and most comfortable bee-house I have 

 seen in California. It has a web of wire cloth, 



face high, all around it, for ventilation, with 

 awning outside to raise or shut down over it 

 according to the weather, and then collected 

 and arranged around me everything I needed. 

 I used a kerosene-oil stove to heat the water 

 for my knives when uncapping. As the flame 

 of such stoves creeps bight r as they warm up 

 after being lighted I was always careful to 

 turn the flame down well before going out for 

 a load of honey, except the last time. When 

 I looked back to the house the flame was to 

 my bed up stairs. All I could save was my 

 trunk and bicycle. It went rather awkward 

 to be without a coat or a bed — nothing to eat 

 or cook, nor to eat it with if you had it. My 

 clock, choice books, account-book, notes, 

 pocket-book, money, and keepsakes are all 

 gone. My extracting-outfit, including your 

 Cowan extractor, and many tools, all yielded 

 to the flames, for my season's beeswax helped 

 to make a flame that the neighbors said rose 

 200 feet high. One-third of the cloth covers 

 of my hives were burned off without setting 

 fire to my hives. Had I saturated my muslin 

 with a solution of borax and sal ammoniac, as 

 I had contemplated doing, I presume it would 

 have been but little damaged. Oil-stoves are 

 so handy I wish they would never go wrong. 



If you have any dodecahedron paper-weights 

 I wish you would send me one, as the one you 

 sent me as a souvenir for being an everlasting 

 subscriber to Gleanings was badly damaged. 



Ventura, Cal., Sept. 24. 



DR. MILLER'S SPLINTS FOR STAYING UP 

 FOUNDATION. 



Patent Medicines. 



BY B. F. AVERILL. 



I wish I could correct Dr. Miller's plan of 

 setting foundation with sticks. Those who 

 try it according to explanations on page 314 

 will certainly have a troublesome task. His 

 sticks are too small. The proper size should 

 De siX/^s, and % inch longer than the space 

 between top and bottom bars, which should 

 be grooved to receive ends of splints. The 

 splints need not be waxed. Eggs are laid and 

 bees are hatched and matured on the wood 

 just as well as in any of the other cells. His 

 method is too complicated. I just put 4 of 

 the sticks in a frame, lay on the foundation, 

 turn over the frame after the last three sticks 

 are sprung in and rolled down, and roll down 

 the first four. This completes the work ready 

 for the bees to build out their combs. If the 

 foundation touches the top-bar there will be 

 no sagging or bulging of combs. Five sticks 

 are not sufficient. It requires 7, and larger 

 sticks than T J g square. There is no trouble 

 about bees eating down the sticks at the bot- 

 tom unless they are unsound. A very slender 

 or fragile stick might be gnawed away at the 

 bottom ; but one or two missing sticks after 

 the combs are drawn out are immaterial. The 

 combs will be stronger than in wired frames. 



The remedies advertised, so far as I 



have tried them, are very good, and no doubt 

 their specifics are brought to the service of 



