Sept. 1, 1911 



525 



Fig. 18. — A 2UU-fi)luiiy apiary of .1. K. Isl)ell, of Wewahitchka, 

 in thewhite-tupelo belt. West Florida, Mr. Isbell in foreground. 

 This yard yielded :?2,000 lbs. of honey in 1910. 



BEE-KEEPING IN FLORIDA. 



Some Representative Bee-men. 



BY E. G. BALDWIN. 



Continued from last i.i.'iue. 



Did space and time permit, it would be 

 well worth while to chronicle the \icissitudes 

 and victories of such men as Mr. ('has. Har- 

 ris, of Holly Hill; Mr. R. S. Shelton, of New 

 Smyrna; Captain Detwiler, of New Smyr- 

 na; Mr. Geo. A. Van de Vorde, of Daytona; 

 Mr. A. E. Brown, of Harwood; Mr. Henry 

 Mitchell, of Hawks Park; Mr. .1. M. Hall, 

 of Fort White; Mr. W. .T. Drumwright, and 

 many others. It would make interesting 

 reading. But no picture of bee-keeping in 

 Florida would be complete without a more 

 detailed record of the bee-men who form an 

 interesting group in the swamp lands along 

 the Apalachicola and 

 Chipola rivers in Cal- 

 houn Co., West Flor- 

 ida — the so-called tu- 

 pelo belt. This sec- 

 tion is only abovit 75 

 miles long by 10 or 20 

 broad, but contains 

 more than (JOOO colo- 

 nies, owmed by com- 

 paratively few bee- 

 men. The owners arc 

 veritable princes 

 among apiculturists. 

 Among this coterie of 

 tupelo-honey produc- 

 ers are Messrs. A. B. 

 Marchant,of Sumatn ; 

 J. K. Isbell, Messrs;. 

 Higgins & HoUinger, 

 and Mr. S. S. Alder- 

 man, of W e w a- 

 hitchka. Some men 

 there own as many as 

 1400 colonies. Near 

 Mr. Isbell are over 

 1800 colonies in nine 

 yards, none more than 



two miles ai)art, and many with- 

 in half a mile of him, nor is 

 there any overcrowding. Mr. 

 Isbell probably produces as 

 much per colony as any man in 

 the number. He secured an 

 average of 140 lbs. per colony 

 in 1910, in an apiary of nearly 

 250 hives, in one place. The 

 shade is afforded mainly by the 

 live oak that flourishes there. 

 The home apiary of Mr. Isbell 

 (shown in Figs. 18 and 19) con- 

 tains 297 colonies, but having 

 2.'>1, spring count, from which 

 he secured the past year (1910) 

 about 88 barrels of choice tupelo 

 honey, nearly ;52,000 lbs. See 

 the article, "White Tupelo," 

 under " F'lorida Honey-plants." 

 Mr. Isl)ell is shown in the fore- 

 ground, right, in Fig. 18. That 

 he believes in strong colonies is 

 ])roved by the fronts of the hives shown in 

 Fig. 19. He writes: "You will notice a few 

 bees clustered on the outside of the hives." 

 It is not difficult to imagine what the inside 

 of those hives is like, if the mass of bees on 

 the first hive shown there, for instance, is 

 only a "few" of the bees in the colony. In 

 the height of the season the entrances are 

 kept fully open, an inch or more deep, all 

 around. Mr. Isbell has been a resident of 

 Florida for 17 years; a V)ee-keei)er for 15. 

 He uses full sheets of foundation in brood - 

 frames, and in ten-frame L. hives, painted. 

 From the dragon-Hy he suffers some loss of 

 queens, but not from forest fires, which do 

 not trouble in that section. Only one year, 

 that he remembers, di<l he suffer serious 

 damage from cold. In 1899 much of the 

 brood in the hives was frozen. 



]Mr. S. S. Alderman, already mentioned, 

 is probably the i)ioneer bee-nran of that sec- 



Fig. 19.— Some of Mr. IsbelKs giant colonies shown in the spring v.hea 

 they were very strong. 



