JULY 1, 3 911 



BEEKEEPING IN CALIFORNIA 



PoCo 



I have some samples of honey from the 

 first cases extracted that are surely fine — so 

 white that you can see* letters through a 

 glass of it, and so thick it can almost be tied 



in a knot. 



* * * 



The State asylum at Patton is said to be 

 full of beekeepers, most of whom are suf- 

 fering with fog on the brain. Attending 

 physicians say all will recover witli Mie 

 advent of clear warm weather. 



* * * 



June 7 was one of the coldest, most cUiudy, 

 and disagreeable days of the season. A coal 

 tire was burning all day at my home, and 

 really was a comfort. Late lin the day heavy 

 showers fell, and a general clearing-up fol- 

 lowed, since wdiich time we have had beau- 

 tiful warm days. 



K. J. Atchley, in the Western Honey Bee, 

 (iiinks neitlier good queens nor drones can 

 be raised out of season; yet I made big 

 money from those raised and introduced in 

 Octoboi- last year, while those introduced in 

 April and May failed me to a great extent 

 in the midst of the heaviest part of the pres- 

 ent season. It is more profitable to intro- 

 duce queens in late summer and autumn 

 I han at any other time, for they as a rule 

 give a good account of themselves the fol- 

 lowing s])ring. 



A poor queen can not always be judged 

 by the amount of bees in her colony. J 

 have known this rule to be used, but it is 

 not infallible. Recently I had a very small 

 colony whose queen to all appearances was 

 first class. To test her I exchanged stands 

 with a very strong colony. In six days she 

 iiad increased her broocl space more than 

 ten times the original amount. I was so 

 pleased with the outcome of this trial that 

 I have tried it on others, saving several 

 fine layers that I might otherwise have 

 destroyed. A weak colony at the end oi a 

 long honey dearth is not necessarily a sign 

 of a poor queen. 



« * * 



Will the specialist beekeeper ever again 

 suffer severe winter losses'? asks the head- 

 line in one of J. L. Byer's notes on page 

 326, May 1, to which I venture the answer, 

 " yes." When the beekeeper thinks he has 

 about mastered the business of making a 

 perfect score along this line, he will some 



iinie see that he has missed tiie mark about 

 50 per cent, for no apparent cause other 

 than the shifting of conditions in nature's 

 plan to a point that had never before been 

 encountered. To-day there are many bee- 

 keepers in our Southland, long since classed 

 as professionals, who have only half the 

 number of colonies they had early last sea- 

 son, in some instances a fourth. This is not 

 because they are not specialists, but because 

 they met problems they were not able to 

 solve in time to prevent heavy loss. These 

 problems were hard to foresee. 



* * •* 



Mr. Editor, do you not believe it is a mat- 

 ter of education more than the flavor of hon- 

 ey that guides the consumer to the kind of 

 honey he purchases'? My second daughter 

 will not touch comb honey, because she has 

 eaten only extracted. She says comb honey 

 is not good. A neighbor of mine thinks that 

 only buckwheat honey from New York is 

 good to eat. Another wants his honey candied 

 hard so he can cut the top out of the can 

 and serve it butter style. There are hun- 

 dreds, and I might say thousands, of people 

 in this State who, in speaking of honey, 

 think only of the extracted product. In the 

 East I once undertook selling extracted 

 honey in my local market, but failed, be- 

 cause people were not used to it, and thought 

 it was squeezed through a cloth or tramped 

 out by foot power — that it must of necessity 

 have sugar in it or it would not candy. 



* » * 



I have read from time to time of many 

 peculiar cases of bee-sting poisoning; but 

 the one that has come nearest home, and 

 was the most peculiar 1 have ever seen, 

 happened last week. My wife is very sus- 

 ceptible to the poison of the sting of a bee, 

 and last week she was stung on the thumb 

 between the nail and the first knuckle joint. 

 In a few minutes she began to cough vio- 

 lently, which continued until she was ex- 

 hausted. All day at intervals the coughing 

 spells would continue. But the most peculiar 

 feature of the incident was that in thirty 

 minutes her eye was swollen almost shut, 

 although the direct swelling from the sting 

 reached only a short distance above the 

 wrist. There was a red line about half an 

 inch wide traveled from the sting up the 

 arm, over the shoulder, the neck and face, 

 and the swelling of the eye began with the 

 result mentioned. 



