JUNE 1, 1916 



429 



BEEKEEPING IN CALIFORNIA 



P. C. Chadwick, 



It is not generallj' known that 

 there are two varieties of wild 

 buckwheat, one of which blooms 

 several weeks in advance of the 



other. 



* * « 



Bro. Baldwin, I greet you as a 

 department editor. Were it my privilege 

 lo assign you a task 1 would give you the 

 problem of introducing a bee into your 

 state that would fly more than V-^ miles for 



nectar. 



* * * 



And now comes Allan Latham openly 

 confessing that the much-famed " let-alone 

 plan," of which he is the originator, has 

 failed. Foul brood is given as the cause of 

 failure, which I think would make it a 

 shaky plan in many parts of this land. We 

 must admire Mr. Latham's thought in work- 

 ing out the plan, if nothing more, for he 

 really has made many of us think new 



tlioughts. 



* » » 



Every season for the past twelve years we 

 have been handicapped by fogs during 

 April and May. We have long hoped that 

 a time might come when these conditions 

 would not prevail. This year we were spar- 

 ed the fogs, with the result that the mois- 

 ture escaped more rapidly than ever. I 

 have been guilty of condemning the weather 

 in past years; but from this time on I shall 

 try to be satisfied with it as it comes. 



* * iS 



I have been watching closely the work of 

 bees on the orange to prove the idea (my 

 idea) that they gather pollen from the navel 

 orange. Well, I give up ; there seems to be 

 none there. Mediterranean sweets, St. Mi- 

 chael's, Valencias, and the common un- 

 budded seedlings, have all yielded pollen 

 under my eyes; but the navel, none. So, in 

 the future, when the orange-gTower asks me 

 how many bees would be necessary to pol- 

 lenize the navel groves of Redlands district, 

 which comprises about 10,000 acres, I shall 

 be compelled to say that one colony will be 



sufficient. 



* * * 



When I read the article of George H. Rea 

 on black brood aiul his treatment of it I 

 thought of my mother who, years ago, in 

 administering to my ailments with some 

 medicine to which I raised objections, would 

 say. " Well, if the remedy is worse than the 

 disease you will have to get along awhile." 

 Mr. Rea's remedy is surely vigorous treat- 



Redlands, Cal. 



ment, and I doubt if it is altogether neces- 

 sary. Melting up all infected brood-combs, 

 to my notion, would be sufficient. Mr. Rea 

 says, " Combs containing diseased brood, if 

 bad, are burned." There is where I disa- 

 gree most emphatically. Why burn any 

 thing of value about the apiary? 

 * « • 



T am a friend of the excluder, believing 

 it to be a necessary appliance; but this sea- 

 son, for the first time, I believe they have 

 been a detriment to my honey crop. It was 

 not exactly the fault of the excluders either 

 — more the fault of myself in getting in a 

 hurry to confine the queens to the brood- 

 chamber, when the immense flow of nectar 

 and the small force of bees so early in the 

 season left no room for brood-rearing. The 

 force of bees, as I have said, was too small 

 to operate in all parts of the hive at the 

 same time. If I had left the excluders off 

 I feel I should have had more brood early, 

 consequently more bees now for the harvest 

 at this date, as the queens could have forced 

 a retreat somewhere. - This season, to be 

 sure, is a very great exception, and the same 

 condition may not happen again in fifty 



years. 



« * » 



There is an old adage that " one swallow 

 does not m.ake a summer." Neither does one 

 r-ainstorm or one wet spell make a honey 

 crop. Late in January our state was flood- 

 ed, the hills were soaked — indeed, the ground 

 was so thoroly soaked that landslides were 

 frequent, even on the foothills where such 

 things were rare. Beekeepers were jubilant, 

 enthusiastic, and satisfied; but, alas! the 

 rain ceased abruptly, the sun came forth in 

 all its brilliancy, and the moisture began 

 to go rapidly. Today, May 6, I read that 

 14 inch of rain has just fallen in San Fran- 

 cisco, the first for 44 days, leaving the 

 record for April the driest since 1857. 

 There is a great lack of moisture all over 

 the state, and honey-plants are the suffer- 

 ers. My scale colony is making about two 

 pounds net per day in the middle of the 

 button-sage bloom, when I had every reason 

 to believe that I might now be getting ten 

 })ounds at this period. Everything is all out 

 of season from the very beginning. Orange 

 bloom was over by the time it usually be- 

 gins to bloom well. The sage followed in 

 about the same unseasonable time, and oth- 

 er thing's in tlie same roll, with no moisture 

 lo help secrete nectar. So near and yet so 

 far! so good and yet so poor! 



