50 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Jan, 15 



BEE-KEEPING IN THE HIGHLANDS OF 

 MEXICO. 



BY O. B. METCALFE. 



With a view to locating bees in Mexico, 

 and of procuring for Gleanings some data 

 as to what sort of proposition bee-keeping 

 on the high tablelands of Mexico really is, 

 the author, during the latter part of August, 

 entered the republic at Laredo and went by 

 the Mexican National R. R. to the city of 

 Mexico, stopping over wherever it seemed 

 that there might be a chance of getting in- 

 formation on the subject. From Mexico 

 City a short trii? was made on south into 

 the Cuerna Vaca country, and the return 

 trip was made back up the old Mexican Cen- 

 tral. The data I collected I will give with- 

 out exaggeration and without prejudice. Of 

 the queer old country with its quaint and 

 romantic beauty, nothing will be said, ex- 

 cept that, to any man who can afford it, 

 the trip is worth while. 



At Laredo the trip began through a semi- 

 arid region, where the main plant life was 

 the great fiat-leafed prickly pear {Opuntia 

 Wislezeni) and mesquite, with here and 

 there a scattered growth of creosote bush 

 {Larrea tridentata) . 



To an Eastern bee-keeper, perhaps few 

 places would have looked less like a good 

 location for bees. Nevertheless, if there 

 were a valley running anywhere through 

 this strip in which alfalfa or perhaps cotton 

 were raised by the hundreds of acres, it 

 would be the finest kind of bee-range, for 

 all three of the plants are honey-bearers, 

 and there are few plants that yield a better 

 honey or more of it than the mesquite. 



Just after the mesquite fiow the creosote 

 bush comes out with its thousands of bright- 

 yellow flowers, and furnishes enough nectar 

 for the bees to keep up brood-raising and to 

 store a little bluish-yellow honey. The cac- 

 tus also furnishes considerable honey in 

 some localities. This semi-arid region is 

 not, however, a practical location for bees 

 unless it is supplemented by some irrigated 

 plant, as the bees seldom store more than 

 enough to summer and wint^ on from nat- 

 ural sources; and when the mesquite fails 

 they sometimes starve. 



At Monterey I had the good fortune to 

 meet a Mrs. Allen, whose husband was a 

 bee-keeper in Colorado some j ears ago, and 

 who had taken it up in a modern way at 

 Monterey. Unfortunately, Mr. Allen had 

 died the year before; and his apiary had 

 gone to pieces, i^art of the colonies having 

 died out, and some more washed away in a 

 big flood. However, his wife had taken 

 some part in the business, and was able to 

 tell me the things I wanted to know most. 

 She still had some fine honey, both comb 

 and extracted, by which I saw that honey 

 of excellent quality could be raised in that 

 locality. Bees do not suffer from spring 

 dwindling at Monterey as they do further 

 south in the wetter parts. Mr. Allen got an 

 average of 100 lbs. of fine white comb honey 



per colony before Oct. 1, and a good fall 

 flow of dark stuff from the sugar-factories. 

 It seems that the Mexicans do not get the 

 pulp as dry as the American sugar-refiners 

 do, and that, after the pulp has turned 

 black, the bees work around it and bring in 

 a syrup which is blacker than New Orleans 

 molasses, and not so good. All comb hon- 

 ey must be taken off before this dark syrup 

 begins coming in or else the bees will fill 

 any unfilled cells with it and spoil the sale 

 of the sections. Some of the sections Mrs. 

 Allen showed me had been finished at the 

 corners with the dark syrup. 



As regards market, the fine white sections 

 brought 40 cts. each in Mexican currency, 

 and the extracted about 15. This is an 

 equivalent of 20 and 1% cents American 

 money, and in these articles all prices must 

 be divided by 2 in order to get the equiva- 

 lents in American money. The above prices 

 were good enough for honey, and the wax 

 brought $1.00 per lb.; but the trouble was, 

 there was a very limited market for the hon- 

 ey, some trouble being experienced in sell- 

 ing the output from about ten or fifteen col- 

 onies — this, mind you, in a city of one hun- 

 dred thousand. The Mexican is not a hon- 

 ey-eater, honey being used more as a medi- 

 cine than as a food. On this account there 

 is practically no market for it in Mexico 

 except to foreigners. 



Mrs. Allen ciaims that their light honey 

 was mostly made from orange, mesquite, 

 and a white syringia which grows wild all 

 over the hills. She complained that the ex- 

 pense of estabishing an apiary in Mexico 

 was very heavy. Among the interesting 

 things she told me was a description of a 

 colony of stingless bees which Mr. Allen 

 had caught in the hills and brought to his 

 house where he kept it hanging in a tree 

 for several years. From the description, 

 these bees made a nest something like the 

 old-fashioned hornet, and of the same ma- 

 terial. Very much unlike the hornet, they 

 had no sting, and would not fight at all. 

 The honey was white and pretty, but did 

 not have the taste of honey-bee honey. I 

 was much interested in these stingless bees, 

 and hoped at least to get a picture of them, 

 for I had several times heard of them; but 

 they had washed away with the rest of the 

 bees. 



About twelve miles south of Monterey the 

 Mexicans keep quite a number of bees in 

 box hives and use another box inverted on 

 the brood-nest box as a super. They under- 

 stand that they are to leave what is in the 

 lower box for the bees. The honey, thty 

 sell cheap; but the wax is not for sale, as they 

 treasure it to make candles for the Catholic 

 church. 



Mesilla Park, N. M. 



To be continued. 



Wild Aster, 



The worst weed pest we have here Is one of the 

 wild asters — Aster tradescanti. Do bees ever work 

 on that kind of aster? 



Oakland, HI. Wm. Cox. 



[We don't know. Can any one answer?— EB.] 



