440 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



took stops to secure the importation of 

 twenty more colonies, and two years 

 later the "Pioneer Apiary of California" 

 numbered 72 colonies. All of these 

 were of the common variety known as 

 the German or black bee, which, after 

 all, is not black, but quite gray. The 

 entire State, and the adjacent territories 

 were sto(iked with bees from this apiary. 



About this time a prominent Pennsyl- 

 vania apiarist, who has since invented 

 the Harbison hive, sailed from New 

 York in the Northern Light, with 67 

 colonies of bees snugly packed in the 

 vessel's hold. These were eventually 

 located near Sacramento, where their 

 thrift and fertility exceeded the most 

 sanguine expectations of the gratified 

 experimentalist. 



For the next 1 5 or 20 years, apicul- 

 ture went hand-in-hand with agriculture. 

 Small farmers all over the State almost 

 invariably owned a few colonies that 

 paid well, notwithstanding desultory 

 attention, and a common ignorance of 

 their requirements. But of late years, 

 the "bee business", has attained the 



THE HARBISON HIVE. 



dignity of an exclusive interest and in- 

 vestment. Not only is it a means of 

 livelihood to hundreds of families, but in 

 not a few cases it is a source of actual 

 wealth. No other industry yields so 

 large a profit for the outlay of capital. 

 A colony of bees in the Winter costs all 

 the way from one to three dollars. They 

 begin swarming about the first of April. 

 Experience proved that bees were ii\ 

 no danger of starving in this climate, so 

 long as they haunted the alternate 

 flowers of mountain and mesa. Those 

 localities are seldom nectarless, even in 

 the dryest of Summers. It takes but a 

 modicum of moisture to bring a riotous 

 crop of bloom on the alfilerilla, sage, 

 sumac, buckwheat, hoarhound, flax, 



golden-rod, and yerba santa, on which 

 the little creatures work with an aban- 

 don of enjoyment. 



California's hilly regions are the Pales- 

 tine of the New World. Most of their 

 present harvesting is done by myriads of 

 blissful bees ; but the time is not far 

 distant when their infinite possibilities 

 will command broader service than can 

 be compassed by these marvelous insects. 

 Already the thrifty stems and vines of 

 the orchardist are beginning to climb up 

 from the cultivated hills of the valleys, 

 disputing with the apiarist the whole- 

 sale possession of these vast territories. 

 As yet, however, the pressure upon the 

 latter is hardly felt, and not worth a 

 moment's anxious thought to him. 



He knows the State covers an area of 

 158,360 square miles, and has only one 

 valley, its great central dip, which meas- 

 ures at its widest point but little more 

 than half a hundred miles from hill to 

 hill. The colossal mountains running 

 the length and breadth of the Coast, 

 have their correlative depressions of val- 

 leys, steppes, and plains, but form, never- 

 theless, innumerable broken surfaces of 

 uplands, with picturesque divisions and 

 subdivisions of ridges, all offering the 

 essential requisites for bee-culture. 



The atmosphere of South California 

 has the same delightful quality so en- 

 thusiastically extolled by Judeau trav- 

 elers. It is due in part to a warm cur- 

 rent in the ocean near the coast line, 

 and the contiguity of the Mojave and 

 Colorado deserts, whose fiery furnaces 

 dry the moisture from the winds ere 

 they arc, fanned back, warmed and 

 purified. Tiien, again, a marked climatic 

 effect is produced from the singular con- 

 formation of the mountain ranges that 

 in a measure separate the southern por- 

 tion of the State from the rest of the 

 continent. They are mightier than Leb- 

 anon's, and are prodigious points of re- 

 flection and convergence of the sun's rays. 



The Italian bee has fast superseded 

 the German black variety in California, 

 and is now the most universally esteemed. 

 It is supposed to be the "variegated 

 golden bee," of which Virgil sang a cen- 

 tury before Christ. It is worthy of such 

 honor, being a beautiful insect, with 

 three golden girdles about the polished 

 satin of its jacket. The Italian bee is a 

 native of the province north of the Gulf 

 of Genoa, and in Europe is known as the 

 Ligurian bee. It is hardier and more 

 amiable than the black bee, besides hav- 

 ing the immense advantage of being a 

 better defender of the hive. In every 

 instance a strong Italian colony is able to 

 overcome its most redoubtable enemy, the 



