884 



(Jleanings in bee culture 



BEEEiEEPMG IN CALIEOMNIA 



While some are objecting to the net- 

 weight law as applied to comb honey, I 

 believe we should welcome the innovation 

 rather than condemn it. There are very few 

 of us who are not more or less interested in 

 the amount of goods we get in any contain- 

 er, and we are no more anxious to pay a 

 full-weight price for a short-weight package 

 than others; so we should not object to giv- 

 ing our customers a guarantee of the 

 amount they are purchasing. 



* * « 



Dr. Miller says, page 793, Oct. 15, " But 

 a good queen is not by any means a failing 

 queen when two years old, and as a rule 

 will be superseded in good time without my 

 meddling.'' Possibly this may be true with 

 Dr. Miller; but it is entirely at variance 

 with my observations in this climate. A 

 queen may show up quite well the third 

 season in some instances; but as a rule we 

 are adding a commercial value to any hive 

 from which we remove a two-year-old queen 

 to rei3laee with a young one. The most 

 successful beekeepers in these parts are 

 those who avoid the necessity of a queen 

 being superseded from natural causes. This 

 is too apt to take place during the honey- 

 flow when we want to keep every thing 

 booming. 



J. E. Crane tells of a squash-blossom con- 

 taining seven dead bees, " evidently caused 

 by several unseasonable days." In this 

 State we suffer perhaps more than any 

 other part of the country from bees being 

 chilled in the field. California's climate 

 depends largely on its sunshine. When the 

 sun is hidden in the spring, bees become 

 chilled quickly. Intermittent cloudy days 

 are the worst we have, and the mortality 

 rate is often enormous. The sun will come 

 out bright and warm for an hour or so, 

 giving the bees opiDortunity to rush to the 

 field. They gorge themselves more or less 

 with cold nectar when suddenly a cloud 

 obscures the sun, and many become chilled 

 on the flowers. If the sun ajipears again 

 in time to warm them up, all is well; but 

 if not, they are lost to the working force of 



the hive. 



» * » 



Now, Dr. Miller, page 661, Sept. 1, I 

 have been investigating the quality of honey 

 offered to the consumer in bottles and other 

 small receptacles, and it is my finding that 



the quality of honey bottled and offered to 

 the trade in this, the land of the whitest of 

 the product, is generally a grade that 

 would go in the amber grade, or light amber 

 at least, while much of our whitest product 

 finds its way across the continent and per- 

 liaps the ocean. A great amount of this is 

 blended with darker grades when packed to 

 bring the darker up to a standard that will 

 please the consumer and make a fair profit 

 for the amount of white used and a big 

 profit for the dark. Locally I have no 

 doubt that you are right, as is the case here 

 where the white is jDurchased from the local 

 beekeeper by the gi'ocer and sold by him to 

 his patrons; yet of all the honey handled by 

 the merchants of this town, the largest part 

 of them secure their supjjly from the whole- 

 sale grocery houses of Los Angeles by pref- 

 erence, for the simple reason they can 

 make a good profit and reduce the expense 

 of filling small packages such as the public 

 most desires. It is high time the beekeepers 

 were beginning to fill this avenue of profit- 

 able trade. 



* * * 



The United States crop report, recently 

 issued, in that part referring to honey, 

 reprinted on page 748, Oct. 1, seems to me 

 hardly gives the true conditions in this 

 State. I am not finding fault with the re- 

 port in 23articular so far as the authenticity 

 of figures is concerned, for I believe it is a 

 wonderful addition to the beekeeping indus- 

 try. But yet I can hardly figure that the 

 difference in last season and this is not more 

 than 100 per cent increase of output for 

 this year. There may be some conditions 

 in parts of the State that I do not know of 

 that affect the report. I dare say it is 

 correctly compiled from figures at hand. 

 The Agricultural Department has sent many 

 blanks to this State to be filled out, that a 

 correct estimate of the crop might be given; 

 and if it is not correct we have ourselves to 

 blame and not the compilers of the report. 



Another striking part of the report is the 

 notation of a great decrease in the quantity 

 of comb and chunk honey. It looks as 

 though there were an opening for some 

 comb-honey producers at this time. It costs 

 heavily to equip for comb honey to an 

 extent that one should be equipped, which 

 is greatly against its production Another 

 feature is the fact that comb-honey produc- 

 tion is expensive some years, as has been 

 tlie case this vear in tliis State. Some bee- 



