52 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



February 



WARNER APIARY AT THE FOOT OF A STEEP MOUNTAIN, SABANA, PORTO RICO. 



Honey conditions here, land prop- 

 erty, etc., I will mention in my next. 



I wish I could get Dr. Maldonado 

 and Don Rafael Serra in Ponce, per- 

 sonally acquainted with one another. 

 I never met two gentlemen so alike 

 in education, taste and culture. I 

 hope when Don Rafael sees these 

 lines he will write the doctor a let- 

 ter, as only he can do it. He will get 

 an answer that will please him. 



Sanchez, Santo Domingo. 



The Future of Beekeeping 

 in Florida 



By J. J. Wilder 



FLORIDA, as a whole, has no 

 great future for beekeeping. 

 No one can drop down in the 

 Slate at any old place with a solid 

 car of bees and expect to succeed, 

 much less to locate and start in and 

 build up. This has been tried, to 

 the sorrow of many. By far the 

 larger part of Florida will not sup- 

 port bees. Of course, there are bees 

 kept most all over the State, but not 

 at a real profit, all told. As many 

 colonies die as are made, and as 

 much money lost in bees as is made, 

 if not more. This not only applies to 

 S who keep bees, but apiarist 

 as well. The number of new ones to 

 give it a trial is increased a little 

 eaeli year as population im i 

 which keeps some life in the indus 

 try and tint- m. 1 here are 



many reasons for this great blank 

 F lorida fi ir i tg, but I 



will name only a tew. 

 hirst, the scarcil 



dition covers bah" of thi 

 tlu most part tin n pine 



come 



nearer - and where the 



has been thinlj 

 they have planti <1 small ivi ol 



citrus. Here 

 surplus, some years, bul 



- end in a failure for surplus; 

 but bees with proper care will tide 

 Then there 



witb 

 yield, and the bees have to be fed 



back nearly all the surplus or they 

 will die out wholesale. So there is 

 but little gain for the honey pro- 

 ducer. This partial or total failure 

 is due to excessive drought or rain- 

 fall, and freezes. 



Xext we come to the streams of 

 salt water and the sea, Here we 

 rind the most honey plants, and 

 chances are better for a surplus for 

 the hard-working apiarist. Yet fail- 

 ure in obtaining surplus stares him 

 in the face and is his greatest dread. 

 He plays even about as many sea- 

 sons as be gains, but if he lives eco- 

 nomically he has a support almost 

 continually except years t>f total fail- 

 ure, when lie may have to do some 

 other work to help pay his bills for 

 Feed for his bees. Failure here is 

 due to weather conditions, same as 

 in any other section. 



In a very few counties in the high 

 sand ridge section of cut-over pine 

 land along northern central portions 



of the State the partridge pea grows 

 extensively enough to give a yield, 

 with conditions entirely different 

 from those of other parts of the 

 State. The flow comes in mid- 

 summer and only a drought will 

 check it. But when drought pre- 

 vails there is another honey plant 

 .growing along with it known as 

 "summer farewell." which only yields 

 under very dry weather conditions. 

 Here we have a surplus every year, 

 but never great, the average being 

 around 30 pounds per colony, and 

 here bees are always in safe condi- 

 tion, in the hands of farmers or 

 apiarists, but the average yield is so 

 low that one has to keep lots of 

 bees in order to make a living, and, 

 of course, a large amount of capital 

 is tied up. Vet bees never breed up 

 very high in this section, and an api- 

 arist can care for many colonies. 



We now come to the best section 

 in the State for beekeeping, which 

 is the tupelo gum region, and is only 

 a very small speck on the map; 

 extending up and down the Apalachi- 

 cola river and also a small strip on 

 the Ocklocknee river, both of which 

 head up in Georgia and flow down 

 through the western portion of the 

 State, emptying into the Gulf ot 

 Mexico, but some forty or fifty miles 

 before they reach it they greatly 

 widen out over the low, fiat coun- 

 try with almost no banks, the 

 main channel breaking up and wind- 

 ing about in small streams and in 

 some places this bed of streams is 

 ten miles across. Here in this over- 

 flowed section both the white and 

 black tupelo gum grow in all their 

 glory and make the beekeeper's 

 paradise in Florida. The most unfor- 

 tunate thing about it is its being a 

 desolate, lonesome swamp, and the 

 only means of transportation is by 

 boats, but they have a regular sched- 



( ' HOI SE AT CUENAS, PO 

 dwellings for the peons. 



RTO RICO. At the top 



