590 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Ills., surprised us all by his .exhibit of 

 choice white one-pound^sections, and we 

 eagerly inquired how he obtained it. He 

 assured us that it was gathered from 

 white and sweet clover, which was very 

 abundant in his neighborhood. It is 

 strange, yet true, that only a few miles 

 from his apiary bees gathered little or 

 no honey. There were rains the pre- 

 ceding season which brought up the 

 clover in his locality, while in others 

 there was none. 



A COLONY OF BEES. 



There was some dissatisfaction among 

 exhibitors as to what constitutes a colony 

 of bees. One frame of brood covered 

 with bees, and containing a queen had 

 been entered and accepted as a colony, 

 and the queen also entered in competi- 

 tion with others on exhibition. It has 

 been the custom among the fraternity to 

 call all small colonies containing two or 

 three combs, a nucleus, and those who 

 had on exhibition hives, such as they 

 used in their apiaries, containing from 

 eight to ten frames, were dissatisfied 

 with the result. The subject of what 

 constitutes a colony of bees will no doubt 

 receive a fair amount of discussion in 

 the bee-periodicals of the country, and a 

 decision arrived at. 



KEUNION. 



A very pleasant reunion was held 

 around the honey exhibit, new acquaint- 

 ances made, and old ones revived. The 

 Hon. J. M. Hambaugh, of Spring, Ills., 

 in company with Mr. Edwards, was 

 present, and very cordially welcomed. 

 Mr. Hambaugh has a warm place in the 

 hearts of all Illinois bee-keepers for his 

 Indefatigable work in the hails of legis- 

 lation during the past Winter. He 

 originated, among others, two important 

 bills for their benefit, namely, the bill 

 appropriating $500 for publishing the 

 annual report of the Illinois Eee-Keep- 

 ers' Association. The other is entitled 

 the " Spraying Bill," which passed the 

 House, but was tabled in the Senate. 



Mr. Hambaugh desired to impress 

 upon us all that idea which I have often 

 expressed, that the honey that bees 

 gathered was only in secondary impor- 

 tance to their great work of fertilization 

 of flowers. It is true that there has 

 been but little return from the bees in 

 the way of honey through the past three 

 years, but there has been crops of fruit 

 as the result of their labors. 



Now a person might suppose that 

 where there is a perfect flower there is 

 no need of a foreign agent to carry this 

 life-giving powder, but there is all the 



same. The apple blossom, for instance, 

 is a perfect flower, containing both pistil 

 and stamens, but when the germ is in 

 season to receive the life-giving powder, 

 the anthers waving in the breeze above 

 are not ripe, have not bursted to shed 

 the pollen, and it must be brought from 

 a mature flower, and the honey-bee is 

 the only agent.— Prairie Farmer. 



A Sotttliern Mornla ADiary. 



The engraving on the opposite page 

 shows the famous Sespe apiary. It is 

 located in Ventura County, on the bank 

 of the Sespe River, from which it takes 

 its name. In 187(5 R. Wilkin, of Cadiz, 

 Ohio, became tired of trying to winter 

 his bees in that cold climate, and moved 

 his large apiary to California, locating 

 it on this spot. This ground has been 

 occupied by bees ever since, but the 

 hives have been changed, and it is now 

 owned by his son-in-law, J. F. Mclhtyre. 

 The grapevines in the foreground were 

 planted soon after the apiary was 

 located, and produced a heavy crop of 

 grapes every year, with little injury, it 

 is claimed, from the bees. The land 

 slopes about 10 feet from the back of 

 the apiary to the honey-house, which 

 makes it easy to wheel the honey into 

 the house. Two carts, shown in the 

 foreground, are used to wheel in the 

 honey. Each cart carries four " supers" 

 full, or about 200 pounds at a load. 



When extracting, one man fills one 

 cart with honey in the apiary, while the 

 other extracts the other cart-load in the 

 honey-house. It takes from 20 to 30 

 minutes to fill a cart, and the man in 

 the honey-house can easily extract one 

 in the same time. 



A 8-inch pipe runs from a reservoir 

 down through the apiary, and connects 

 with a Pelton water motor in the honey- 

 house, which furnishes sufficient power 

 to run a small circular saw or the honey- 

 extractor. 



The honey runs from the extractor 

 into iron tanks, shown below the honey- 

 house, which hold 8,000 pounds each, 

 where it is allowed to stand for one or 

 two weeks, and is then drawn off 

 through a molasses gate into 60-pound 

 cans for the market. 



This apiary produced 27,000 pounds 

 of honey last year, and 9,480 pounds 

 this year. The hives are the Ventura 

 County standard. They are really a 10- 

 frame Langstroth without portico, and 

 have a loose bottom-board. A zinc 

 queen-excluder is used between the 



