1911 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



243 



PIG. 16. — EDWIN G. BALDWIN'S " MEDRA " QUEEN-REARING APIARY AMONG THE PINES, 

 CENTRAL FLORIDA, IN THE ORANGE BELT. 



BEE-KEEPING IN FLORIDA. 



Some of the Difficulties. 



BY B. G. BALDWIN. 



Continued from last issue. 



Were it not for the fact that there is no 

 rose without its thorn, bee-keeping on the 

 peninsula might be the " Eldorado " of api- 

 culture, the beeman's paradise. As it is, 

 bee-keeping here is beset with as serious dif- 

 ficulties as it is further north. To be sure, 

 that bugbear, the winter problem, has not 

 to be met and overcome here; nor has foul 

 brood made its dreaded ravages in our fair 

 State, that our northern brethren are now 

 experiencing. But let me enumerate some 

 of the "lions in the way;" then decide for 

 yourselves whether our favorite pursuit in 

 Florida has not foes worthy of the bee- man's 

 best steel. 



Foremost among his arch enemies stand 

 the deadly freezes, already alluded to, that 

 sweep down on our fair land, congealing the 

 succulent juices of myriads of trees and 

 semi-tropical shrubs and plants into solid 

 frost, leaving the land a blasted and wither- 

 ed heath. Not only does the orange-grower 

 suffer, but the bee-man, whose chief surplus 

 is from that source, sufTers with him. The 

 apiarists, too, who depend largely on the 

 black mangrove for surplus, are as hard hit 



as any branch of agriculturists, and many 

 were driven altogether out of the business 

 back in '95 and '99, never again to join the 

 ranks; and when one branch sufTers, all suf- 

 fer indirectly; for when the orange-man has 

 no fruit, he has no money with which to 

 buy honey, and local prices and local de- 

 mand suffer. Such damaging frosts come 

 about every ten years, with a less severe one 

 between them. Of course, this is on only a 

 very general average. There is not really 

 any set time. Were it so, then preparations 

 could be made. 



In 1886 there was a deadly freeze; in 1895 

 an even more severe one; in 1899 one not 

 quite so bad, though bad enough; and in 

 1909 another severe freeze. The latter was 

 not quite so damaging to trees as was at fiist 

 feared. The palmetto does not suffer at all 

 from the cold "snaps," nor do the southern 

 portions of the State feel them as severely 

 as the northern half. There seems no rem- 

 edy against the ravages of Jack Frost. The 

 bee-men of Florida must even take their 

 share of the burden along with the rest of 

 mankind. Proper conservation of the natu- 

 ral forest resources would no doubt do much 

 to prevent, if not entirely, at least in great 

 part, the suddenness and severity of these 

 cold waves that now come with such merci- 

 less swiftness. The cutting-away of the 

 pine woods so generally over large areas of 

 the State and the northern tier of States, 



