584 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Sept. 12, 



me in this, I wish to say it is not an easy thing to make your 

 arrangements and get ready a carload of bees in so short a 

 time, and only a strong conviction of duty prompted mo to 

 do it. 



I wish to say right liere that my car was attached to the 

 passenger train, and very nicely handled, and the moving was 

 quite a success. I lost only a part of two very heavy colonies 

 that completely choised the screen that was all over the top 

 of the hives. 



As to how much honey I shall get, I am unable to say, but 

 I am getting some, and the bees are in the finest condition 1 

 ever had them. I shall put them up to about 100 colonies, 

 besides selling enough to pay for bringing them here, and 

 have the honey I get to help cheer my wife next winter, for so 

 valiantly talking care of the chicks and fruits while I am 

 away. 



It was my intention to take the bees home again on the 

 ceasing of the honey-flow, but my mind is changed, and I shall 

 pack them here. 



You naturally ask what they get to feed on here. Well, 

 there are the usual spring things, and some fruit-bloom, as this 

 is going to be the best fruit county in the State ; then comes 

 red raspberry, and I want to say that it is yielding yet, as 

 some pickers told me yesterday that the bees were just swarm- 

 ing on it up in the woods, and I also have seen for myself. 

 Then comes white clover, and the latter part of June com- 

 mences that wonder of a honey-plant — the Epilobium, that 

 this morning they seemed to be working on as hard as ever. 

 It lasts well up till frost, then when it is at its best basswood 

 comes, and for reasons I have not time to explain here, it 

 lasts nearly a month— It is going a little yet. The golden-rod 

 is just opening — there are miles of it ; and sandwiched in with 

 these are catnip, milkweed, thistles, buckwheat, etc. In 

 short, it is wild feed instead of tame that we depend upon. 

 And we have had rains, and it is raining while I write this 

 little description of my migratory bee-keeping to set myself 

 right before the bee-fraternity. 



Frankfort, Mich., July 30. 



Starting an Apiary in Calif. — Keeping Combs. 



BY DE. E. GALLUP. 



Many eastern correspondents ask me about starting an 

 apiary in California. In the first place, you want to select the 

 locality, and in many cases it costs considerable labor to make 

 your road, but in other localities the labor would be but a 

 trifle. You can purchase your bees in movable-comb hives for 

 from SI. 50 to §1.75 per colony ; or, if you take one season, 

 you can gather up your colonies for a trifle, or get a small 

 start, and then make your bees, as the climate is such that 

 one can increase very rapidly in the valleys, as you have from 

 the middle of March to the middle of October to do it in — 

 seven months. 



In the mountains, or foot-hills, you want an extracting- 

 house. Some use a cloth tent at first, but a house of rough 

 lumber and redwood "shakes" can be built very cheaply, 

 and one can live in the cheapest kind of a house, or can live 

 in a canvas tent the entire year, as many have done until 

 they get a start. 



Of course you want an extractor, also a sun wax-extractor 

 to melt the cappings, pieces of combs, old combs, etc. Then 

 you want to preserve all spare combs from the moths. To 

 start with, you can dig a square hole in the ground large 

 enough to hold the supers with the surplus combs — not In the 

 hole, but over it. Place some scantlings over the hole, and 

 pile up the supers containing the combs, side by side, and six 

 or eight supers high ; put covers on top, and over the whole 

 place a canvas to keep in the smoke. Bank up tight all 

 around the bottom supers. Dig a small trench 3 or 4 feet long 



out from this square hole, and cover with a strip of old tin or 

 sheet-iron. This trench is to put the burning sulphur in. 

 Melt the sulphur in some old kettle, and when melted saturate 

 old cotton-rags with the melted sulphur, and when cool keep 

 a lot on hand ready for use at any time. Then all you have 

 to do is to set fire to some of those sulphured rags, and place 

 them in the trench, and cover it up, and it is a very short job 

 to fumigate the combs as often as required. It is poor policy 

 to allow the moths to destroy combs. 



Now I have told you how a poor man with little means 

 can start an apiary. If one has the means, he can build a 

 small, tight fumigating-house to hang the combs in, and then 

 he has it on hand at all times. When we have good seasons 

 right along in succession, the bees take care of their own 

 combs, but when we have a season like the season of 1894, 

 and lots of our bees die, or we have spare combs that we do 

 not use for any cause, then it pays to preserve them, as with 

 the ready-made combs one can, if he knows how, build up his 

 apiary in short order, and have the bees on hand and ready 

 for storing by the time the harvest commences in this glorious 

 climate. 



If bees are cared for as they should be, there need be but 

 very little loss. Understand, we do not have to prepare our 

 bees for winter as those do in the East. We can set down a 

 hive where we want it, and there it stands year in and year 

 out. 



Now, do not take my word for anything, but come and 

 see for yourself. I know many a poor man thit came here, 

 all broken down in health, went into the mountains and 

 started a bee-ranch in the most primitive manner, and came 

 out all right, with excellent health and independent. Neither 

 do I wish to advise any one, but I am trying to give facts as I 

 see them. I have been in this State over 15 years, and I con- 

 fess that I am enthusiastic over our country and climate. Now 

 what are ymi going to do about it ? 



Santa Ana, Calif. 



P. S. — I ordered six queens from a Massachusetts breeder, 

 and they were 1 1 days on the road, owing to washouts in 

 Arizona, and other delays, and they arrived with not a single 

 dead bee. They were put up in quite a different manner from 

 what they used to be when I was a bee-keeper. E. G. 



CONDnCTED BY 

 DR. J. P. II. BROVVA% AUGUSTA., GA. 



[Please send all questions relating to bee-keeping In the South dlrec* 

 to Dr. Brown, and he will answer in this department. — Ed."] 



Eigrlit-Framc Hives — management of Bees. 



" ' Eight frames are not enough for some queens,' and 

 similar expressions, are still found in the pages of some of the 

 bee-journals. I cannot help wondering how long this fallacy 



will last To hear some talk, one would think that 



' cramping a queen for lack of room,' was one of the most dis- 

 astrous things possible for a bee-keeper to do." — W. Z. Hutch- 

 inson, in Review for July. 



Look here, Mr. Hutchinson, you needn't think that you 

 and Heddon know everything, and what you "don't know" is 

 not worth knowing. Whatever may be right with yourself, 

 and in your locality, is not necessarily the best everywhere 

 else, and in everybody's hands. Cramping the laying of a 

 queen by lack of room, with me, means invariably a swarm in- 

 stead of a surplus of honey, and is certainly unquestionably 

 " disastrous " so far as my pocket-book is concerned, and this 

 is not a "fallacy," but an incontrovertible fact. 



Let us look at the question carefully. 



