1881 



GLE^VNINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



43; 



CALIFORNIA. 



OUR OLD FRIEND GALLUP ALMOST I.V BLASTED 

 HOPES. 



MpITOJt GLEA-XINGS:— Ishiill pive your read- 

 I ers an insight into the t'-ials and tribulations 



of California bee-keeping for the season of 



1881; anil to besrin, I will give my niemorandiioi just 

 as I And it in my pocket diary. 



I started the seasan with 103 stocks; 3 of them 

 were queenless, and one drone-layer. On the olst of 

 Mai'ch I had 54 new swarms; swarming was all done 

 up on the 19th of April, and I had Hi new swarms, 

 part artificial but mostly natural; yet I suppressed 

 swarming as much as possible. But swarm they 

 would, and swarm they did. April 17th and 18th, 

 quite heavy rain. April was extra cool and foggy 

 up to the "^tth; young swarms all had to be fed, and 

 supplied with fdn., as they could build no comb. 

 They began to gather honey quite freely on the 23th 

 of April; began to extract from brood-chamber to 

 give room for the queens to lay. May came in quite 

 cool and foggy. Buck brush, liutton, and white 

 sage in bloom; 6th and Tth, quite good honey weath- 

 er; 9th to 12th, ver>- cool; slight frost in some 

 places; 14th, weather some better; Ifith, light show- 

 ers, accompanied with some thunder on the moun- 

 tains; May 19th, excellent honey weather; 20th, hot 

 and windy; too much so for honey; 28th, excellent 

 honey day; 29th, too windy again; June 25th, finished 

 up for the season ; had 3000 lbs. extracted honey ; 

 could scarcely succeed in getting young queens fer- 

 tilized. My final increase amounted to about 50 per 

 cent. AVhen they failed the second ti nie, I com- 

 menced breaking up and doubling. The coast breeze 

 would come up every day about 10 o'clock a. m., and 

 blow until 3 and 4 p. m., a perfect gale. Young 

 queens would tly out and never return, and the 

 workers were swept away by the thousands. I at- 

 tribute the swarming mania to the stock from my 

 imported queens, as m.v bees and Mr. Dudley's, who 

 had the use of my imported queens, were the only 

 ones that swarmed to amount to any thing in the 

 whole country, so far as I heard. Many apiaries 

 did not have a single swarm. I never saw a more 

 profuse bloom anywhere in my life. Some apiaries 

 have done better in surplus than I have done, and 

 some have neither swarms nor surplus. A great 

 deal has depended upon locality. Some apiaries 

 were located where the range was protected from 

 the coast winds. 



My plan to get surplus is this: I never put on a 

 super until every one of the 10 combs is full of 

 brood, and my fdn. combs are full indeed. They 

 would average 6000 bees to the comb, and many of 

 them 6800, and as straight and true as a board. I do 

 not always wait for the queen to flU every comb in 

 that manner, but 1 want to know that I have a good 

 prolific queen, and then exchange or draw combs 

 from other stocks, and till up, and then on goes the 

 super. Now, a stock prepared in that manner will 

 store honey if there is any to be had; and if I had 

 200 stocks of bees, and could get only 100 in the right 

 condition for supers, I think I get more honey than 

 I would to put supers 011 the whole 200 hap hazard. 

 Of course, those that I draw brood from I build up 

 to good strong stocks for wintering. I left the bees 

 in good condition, and I may say splendid condition, 

 but have not heard from them lately. 

 The season has been a very deceptiA c one. There 



was abundance of rain, and abundance of bloom and 

 bees; bee-keepers bought lumber, made hives, and 

 made or purchased cans, and then waited for swarms 

 and honey that did not come, and there is a blue set 

 of bee-keepers in Southern California to-day. I 

 have come out with more than a whole skin. When 

 my bees were swarming I was accused of feeding to 

 stimulate; but I did not feed a single oil stock in 

 the apiary, for all had an abundance, and the most 

 of them had more than was necessary, and I took 

 honey from them to feed my new swarms. 1 had 

 about 1000 frames filled with new comb, mostly from 

 fdn. Here in Los Angeles Co., bees have not done 

 as well as they did in N'entura Co.; some have 

 moved their bees down into the valley to prevent 

 starvation; still, those that kept them in the moun- 

 tains have tilled up well from California sumach. 



Elisha Galu p. 

 Santa Ana, Los .\ngcles Co , Cal., July 19, l,s«l. 



ITALIANS WORKING ON RED CLOVER. 



f' WAS reading in your May No., 1881, about red- 

 clover bees. I would like to inquire what va- 

 — ' riety of bees these are. I supposed the Italians 

 woidddo that, but I have them, and I have never 

 yet seen a honey-bee of any kind on red clover. I 

 went out to-day into a field close by that was in full 



' bloom, second crop: it was swarming with bumble- 

 bees, but "nary " a honey-bee. I have 9 swarms of 

 bees, mostly Italians, and only one among the lot 

 that has stored any surplus comb honey. 1 came 



1 home disgusted with my bees. The only thing they 

 are doing at present is gathering a little pollen from 

 corn-tassels. Put me in Blasted Hopes, for T guess 

 that is where I belong. There was lots of white 

 clover here this season, but the bees could do noth- 

 ing but swarm during its staj'. If you have got a 

 strain ol bees that you can guarantee to work on 

 red clover, I would like to try them. I have one 



' swarm of hybrids in chaff hive that I will put the 

 red-clover queen irilofor a trial if \ou can supply 

 me. L. '!. Heed. 



Kent, O., July 31, 1881. 



; What v.e termed our '• red-clover queen '" 

 ; was the queen of a single colony out of 

 i over 300, that gathered more stores than any 

 of the rest when the seed crop of red clover 

 was m bloom, and we supposed the honey 

 ■ came from red clover because the working 

 liees all had a small load of the dark-green 

 pollen that comes from red clover, and sel- 

 dom from any other plant. The queen died 

 last winter, but we have several of her grand- 

 ' daughters in our apiary. Sometimes red 

 clover yields iKmey in the" fall, and sometimes 

 it does not; so you must not blame your 

 bees if you do not always iind them on it. 

 In our locality we can "almost always hnd 

 Italians at work on clover-fields in August, 

 I and I have shown them to a great many Avho 

 I Avere skeptical. If you have only a few 

 I hives, and there are large lields of clover, the 

 i bees would be so scattered tliat >ou might 

 not see them ; but go to your hives and see 

 if you do not find laden bees coming in with 

 the dark pollen on their legs, as I have men- 

 . tioned. .Vbout one season in four, our bees 

 gather honey enough from red clover to 

 build some combs. At such times common 

 I bees will do little but rob and bother, while 

 I the Italians are diligently at work. I can 



