1918 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



189 



The variety of flora is extremely 

 interesting. Figure 2 shows a semi- 

 tropical vegetation to be found near 

 Brownsville. In the valley one finds 

 both the desert flora and the valley 

 flora, so that there is a great variety 

 of bloom with something open for 

 the bees every month in the year. 

 The first beekeeper visited was A. 

 Lvnn Stephenson, proprietor of the 

 Honeydale apiaries. Our cover pic- 



Fig. 4.— The Huisache furnishes plenty of 

 early pollen in the Rio Grande Valley 



ture shows his home apiary, which is 

 probably the southernmost apiary in 

 Texas cared for according to ap- 

 proved methods. There is a Mexican 

 apiary a mile or so further south, but 

 it is primitive in the extreme and 

 will be described in another article. 



The Stephenson apiary is under 

 Texas ebony trees. These are unlike 

 anything to be found further north. 

 The tree is evergreen and blooms 

 several times during the year. It is 

 a legume and bears beans like the 

 locust pods. (Siderocarpus flcxicaulis.) 

 It is important for nectar. 



Mr. McDonald, the county agent, 

 and Mr. Stephenson both put their 

 time and their cars at our disposal, 

 so there was the finest chance, not 

 only to see everything worth while, 

 but to obtain information at first 

 hand. It was February, and every- 

 thing at home was in cold storage. 

 Mr. Stephenson picked some fine 

 strawberries and sent to our hotel at 

 a time when coal was at a premium 

 at home, and the thermometer regis- 

 tered 15 or 20 degrees below zero. 

 At that time the bees were working 

 freely on the hackberry and bringing 

 in considerable nectar. The Huisa- 

 che, pronounced "wesache," was 

 also blooming and furnished pollen in 

 abundance. Many of the plants in 

 that section have Mexican names and 

 the h has the sound of w. There was 

 also a species of mint blooming 

 which furnishes considerable honey 

 some seasons. 



Driving to Rio Hondo, we visited 



the apiaries of Grant Anderson, 

 which are situated on the banks of 

 the Arroyo, a salt water inlet from 

 the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Anderson 

 uses a motor boat in traveling to and 

 from his outyards, as described in the 

 Journal some months ago. In even 

 this short distance of about twenty 

 miles, there is quite a difference in 

 the flora. At Brownsville they have 

 a number of plants not found at Rio 

 Hondo, and some at the latter place 

 not found at Brownsville. It cer- 

 tainly behooves a beekeeper to know 

 his locality in Texas. At Mercedes 

 there are a number of good beekeep- 

 ers who gave us much information 

 about the conditions peculiar to the 

 valley. Claude Armstrong reported 

 the largest average of surplus of 

 which we heard in the valley. He 

 reported that in an average season 

 he had secured as much as 75 pounds 

 per c'olonv in outyards. 



L. LaRue considers 40 to 50 

 pounds a very good yield in his lo- 

 cality. J. D. Kennedy considers _ 50 

 pounds as about an average for him. 

 These were rather better reports 

 than were found in other parts of the 

 valley. 



At first thought, one would expect 

 this vallev to offer a bonanza loca- 

 tion for the honey producer, with its 

 great variety of honey flora yielding 

 something practically every month in 

 the year. After looking the ground 

 over, however, one discovers that the 

 brood-rearing season is continued 

 correspondingly, with the result that 

 most of the honey gathered is con- 

 sumed in brood rearing during the 

 portion of the year when there is lit- 

 tle surplus stored. In February, we 

 found the bees in the Honevdale 

 apiarv were strong enough for shak- 

 ing for increase, filling packages, or 

 any other desired manipulation. They 

 apparently averaged about as strong 

 as would be the case in Iowa the 

 middle of May to June 1. Tt seemed 

 to be the consensus of opinion of the 



beekeepers in the valley, that the 

 surplus would not average to exceed 

 25 pounds per colony for a series of 

 years. 



After visiting many beekeepeers 

 and asking more questions than four 

 small boys, we were impressed with 

 the fact that the Rio Grande valley 

 is the finest place in America for 

 breeding bees, but rather a poor lo- 

 cation (except in a few favored 

 spots) for honey production. It 

 would be possible to fill orders for 

 queens or packages of bees a month 

 to six weeks earlier than in Alabama 

 or Mississippi. Then one could rear 

 queens and mate them successfully 

 for at least ten months in every year 

 and, some years, for the entire twelve 

 months. W. H. Laws, of Beeville, has 

 established some queen yards in the 

 valley, in order to be more inde- 

 pendent of poor seasons, and also to 

 add several weeks to the length of 

 his queen-rearing period. 



Cactus, commonly called prickly 

 pear, or just "pear," is very common 

 everywhere. It grows in clumps 

 often as high as a man's head. It 

 yields some honey and an abundance 

 of pollen. Apparently, it is of much 

 greater importance in some other 

 sections than in the Rio Grande val- 

 ley. Beside the cactus, the wild land 

 is covered with a scrubby growth of 

 thorny bushes, such as mesquite, cat- 

 claw, etc. It is difficult for one to 

 walk about through the growth, for 

 although it is not so very dense, the 

 thorns catch in one's clothing and 

 scratch one's flesh. After the first 

 day that a stranger spends walking 

 about in the chaparral, as the bush 

 is often called, he spends most of the 

 night following in scratching for 

 chiggers and ticks. After a time he 

 becomes somewhat immune to the at- 

 tacks and also learns how to rid him- 

 self of the pests. 



About 90 per cent of the country is 

 still in the wild, and will be for a 

 long time to come. 



