414 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



and usefulness of the colony, so is the 

 mother in a human family to the happi- 

 ness and prosperity of the home in which 

 she is the queenly center. So long as she 

 lives, there clusters about the old home- 

 stead a charm which no boy or girl can 

 ever forget, and though they may roam 

 in distant fields, in search of the sweets 

 of fortune, they will return so long as 

 mother is the reigning queen at the old 

 birthplace, made sacred by a thousand 

 memories of her unselfish devotion. 



If she sicken and die, how soon is the 

 home cluster broken and the hearth des- 

 olate! Like the motherless bees, that 

 wander up and down the hive — home- 

 less, hopeless, disorganized ; a prey to 

 marauders — so the family, that has felt 

 the hallowed influences of a mother's 

 prayers and love, is made to mourn and 

 lament by her untimely taking off. 



May the queens in our homes long be 

 spared to honor the high places which 

 they so nobly fill. May they never be 

 superseded by fickle purpose, nor relent- 

 less fortune. May they never lack loyal 

 devotion and protection, so long as a 

 nucleus of the old stock is left to defend 

 them. 



Forest City, Iowa. ' 



Bee-Notes from California, 



S. L. WATKINS. 



The one-pound section is being univer- 

 sally adopted in California. 



The silver firs of the upper Sierras, are 

 rich in both pollen and honey-dew. 



Several species of wild buckwheat grow 

 luxuriantly along the margins of streams, 

 and furnish considerable honey some 

 seasons. 



The bee-business is improving in Cali- 

 fornia ; the live and let live prices that 

 honey has been selling for during the 

 last two seasons, is quite encouraging. 



The famous white sage and alfalfa, 

 undoubtedly stand at the head of all 

 honey-producing plants in the West, both 

 yielding large quantities of clear, pale 

 honey, which is greatly prized in all 

 markets it has ever yet reached. 



Carniolan bees give splendid results in 

 California, their hives being filled to re- 

 pletion with honey, and overflowing with 

 bees. They are admirably adapted to 

 the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and excel 

 all other races in honey-gathering, pro- 

 lificness of queens, wintering, etc. 



The fruit industry in California is now 

 simply immense, and is growing greater 



every day. The last few weeks thou- 

 sands of acres have been set to orange, 

 lemon, fig, olive, apricot, grape, apple, 

 pear, peach, etc., and still there are hun- 

 dreds of thousands of acres of good land 

 yet to be obtained, and turned into fruit- 

 ranches, bee-ranches, etc, 



There is a great deal of desert land in 

 the Southern and Eastern parts of Cali- 

 fornia, but very little of it is regarded as 

 a desert in the eyes of a bee. Owen's 

 Valley, Death Valley and the Mojave 

 Desert, are said to be excellent honey- 

 producing sections. Alfalfa grows well 

 in these deserts, if irrigated. The Pa- 

 cific Borax Co. has a ranch in Death Val- 

 ley which they have set to alfalfa. The 

 water is conducted from Furnace Creek, 

 7 miles away, to their ranch. They have 

 about 100 acres set to alfalfa, and last 

 season raised 8 crops, all good ones, too ; 

 so you see, if water sufficient for irrigat- 

 ing purposes could be obtained, it woyld 

 be a great section for raising alfalfa. 



Last fall I visited a bee-keeper in Yolo 

 County, this State, who has several bee- 

 ranches scattered around in the marshes 

 of that section. He has all his hives 

 resting on platforms, all the way from 8 

 to 12 feet from the ground, to keep them 

 from being washed away by the high 

 waters in the Winter time. All his hives 

 are the Harbison style. Now, after the 

 bees had filled their hives, he did not 

 take off the sections at the proper time, 

 and as a consequence, the bees did not 

 have any place to work in the hives, so 

 they came out and commenced working 

 underneath their hives, on the platform, 

 until some of them had combs suspended 

 there, from 15 to 20 inches long. There 

 are 50 hives on a platform, side by side, 

 and when these bees commenced work- 

 ing underneath their hives, the bees of 

 one colony must have surely intermixed 

 with those of another, and the owner 

 tells me that there was no fighting going 

 on at all that he noticed. 



Grizzly Flats, Calif. 



TMt "Trade-Mart" for Honey, 



DE. C. C. MILLEE. 



When the matter of a trade-mark for 

 bee-keepers was first broached, there 

 seemed to be no opposition to it, and the 

 gradual growth of opposition has been 

 something unusual. I have been watch- 

 ing, with some degree of interest, to see 

 what arguments would be advanced for 

 and against it. As nearly as I under- 

 stand it, the object of the trade-mark is 



