THE AMERICAN A FIG UL TURIS T. 



37 



generally join up to five swarms to 

 get one good strong hive, and these 

 collect a rich harvest from the clover, 

 etc., etc., and the latter out of bloom 

 they are taken first to the buckwheat 

 field, and afterwards to the moors ; 

 but these people are always obliged 

 to buy from their neighbors those 

 bees intended for the sulphur pit, to 

 re- stock, and join to their own in 

 autumn, because their numbers 

 have dwindled down during the 

 months of hard work of collecting 

 when they have ceased to increase." 

 In England certain parties have 

 already been experimenting the Gat- 

 enais system, and one gentleman 

 describes how he inverted a straw 

 skep on the verge of swarming (so 

 overflowing was it with bees) placing 

 the queen excluder zinc over, as de- 

 scribed, with sections thereon. He 

 had the pleasure soon to see the bees 

 take possession thereof; rapidly 

 cease idling around, and go to work, 

 dropping the swarming idea appar- 

 ently, for here lates how he took off 

 forty-five pounds of honey in sec- 

 tions and does not speak of any 

 swarm issuing. 



A GOOD REPORT FROM 



THE FAR WEST 



By Jno. L. Gregg. 



I SEND you a short article on api- 

 culture in this part of God's moral 

 vineyard. 



I commenced by buying one hive 

 of hybrid Italians, about the 20th 

 day of March, 1884, for which I 

 paid ^15. I immediately went to a 

 tin shop and had an extractor made 

 so as to be ready to save all the 

 honey they might make. But my 



bees were in a one story Langstroth 

 hive, so I went to work and transferred 

 to my own hive, one I had gotten 

 up, some eighteen years since, a two 

 story hive constructed expressly for 

 the extractor. It carries ten frames 

 in each story. 



In 1884 from the start of one hive 

 I got fourteen swarms and took fifty 

 gallons or 600 pounds honey. How- 

 ever, I sent to A. I. Root and pro- 

 cured four Syrians or Holyland 

 queens from which I raised a queen 

 for each hive, all of which produced 

 half breeds. I then sold three hives 

 leaving twelve with which I went in- 

 to winter quarters on their summer 

 stands. 



In the spring of 1885, I had 

 twelve hives, three of which had 

 drone-laying queens which had to be 

 killed. I gave each of them a comb 

 of brood from my best hive of pure 

 bloods, from which they raised 

 queens that were purely fertilized 

 and at the same time I commenced 

 to raise queens to replace all those 

 that produced half breed bees. 



I now have thirty-six hives pure 

 Holyland bees, and twenty-two one- 

 two- three- and four-framed nuclei 

 which when doubled up will make 

 two more full hives ; and I have 

 taken up to date 485 gallons or 5420 

 pounds of the finest honey I ever 

 saw in any country. How will that 

 do for high? I also have raised 

 during the season 104 queens, which 

 Isold for I1.25 for untested and 

 ;^2.5o for tested. 



We have quite a \-ariety of honey 

 producing plants, namely, the desert 

 currant commences to bloom Feb, 

 10, and continues till April i ; 

 March 20, a shrub or bu.^h which 

 grows in all our ditches and all 

 swampy grounds, commences to 

 bloom and continues till May the ist, 

 when the mesquite begins to show 

 its golden spikes or racemes of blos- 

 soms and sets the bee wild just like 

 the basswood in the eastern states. 

 It continues in bloom till about the 



