296 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



September 



portation. In 1881 they brought in 



the tin plate and made cans, in which 

 to Store the honey crop, right in the 

 apiary where they were to be used. 



Mendleson is located in the sage 

 district of Southern California and 

 for thirty years has been moving i 

 the bean fields. Ventura Countj is 

 said to have produced last season 72 

 per cent of the lima beans of the en- 

 tile United States. Lima beans and 

 the black-eyed beans are the two va- 

 rieties which produce nectar in abun- 

 dance. The black-eyed beans yield a 

 dark amber honey, but -of good qual- 

 ity. The honey from lima beans is 

 almost water white and of fine flavor. 

 Mendleson has secured as high as ISO 

 pounds average per colony of this 

 fine honey in a good season. A pe- 

 culiarity of the bean honey is that it 

 will sometimes sweat and ferment on 

 the hives of weak or medium colo- 

 nies near the coast. With strong 

 colonies this seldom happens, even 

 near the coast, and not in any case in 

 the interior, where it is improved from 

 being left on the hives. The bean 

 honej' granulates easily. 



While Mendleson practices migra- 

 tory beekeeping, he moves to the 

 same location year after year and 

 has a complete outfit at every apiary 

 site. His Piru apiary is perhap 

 widely known as any single apiary 

 in America. Many photographs have 

 been published showing this most at- 

 tractive outyard. The model arrange- 

 ment, with the background of moun- 

 tains, makes a most attractive pii 

 ture. Another illustration herewith 

 shows the interior ot the honey- 

 house at this yard. It will be seen 

 that he has a complete power outfit 

 with every labor-saving device. 



He formerly made a practice of re- 

 queening all his colonies every two 

 years. Since he has had to contend 

 with European foulbrood he re- 

 queens every colony that does not 

 build up quickly in spring, and never 

 allows any queens more than two 

 years old. With his 1,400 to 2,000 

 colonies the queen-rearing opera- 

 tions alone make quite a business. 

 For this work he has a lady engaged 

 who makes it a specialty. Women arc- 

 well adapted to queen-rearing, as they 

 are careful and painstaking, and there 



A crew of women worke 



is no heavy lifting connected with 

 this particular work. 



In the Mendleson apiaries woni'ii 

 take a prominent place in the regular 

 work. Our illustration shows a group 

 cpf four of them in special farmerette 

 suits. Except for the heavy lifting 

 at extracting time and when moving 

 the bees he finds the women make 

 very satisfactory beekeepers. In ad- 

 dition to his crew of women beekeep- 

 ers he hires one man by the year and 

 gives a hand himself wherever help 

 is needed. 



It is his practice to leave about 

 twice as much honey on the hives as 

 will be needed in a favorable season, 

 lie insists that surplus left with the 

 bees pays big interest, as it saves 

 Feeding in limes of shortage and in- 

 sures that brood-rearing will be con- 

 tinued at proper times, even though 

 no honey is coming in. An abundance 

 of stores and plenty of room in ad- 

 vance of the honey flow is the best 

 insurance of a crop. More California 

 beekeepers fail from extracting too 

 closely than for any other reason. His 

 largi t crop was more than 100 tons 

 and had he been able to get sufficient 

 skilled help and enough cans to hold 

 it he feels that this particular crop 

 might have been nearly double. When 

 a big flow is on it takes a lot oi ac- 

 1 i..n to keep up with it with a couple 



i at the Mendleson yards 



of thousand colonies of bees. 



In a good sage year it is possible to 

 keep a lot of bees together without 

 overstocking. The sage crops always 

 come following wet winters. One 

 year he kept 800 colonies in one yard. 

 However, the sage often fails for two 

 or three years in succession. When a 

 flow does come the bees pile up the 

 honey in a way to gladden the heart. 

 He has had from one to five full- 

 depth Langstroth supers filled on 

 every hive in three days' time during 

 such a flow, with an average of two 

 such supers for the yard. There have 

 been only two of these exceptionally 

 heavy flows in his thirty-eight years 

 oi California experience. After the 

 three days of heavy flow he was able 

 to extract twice again si\- days apart 

 and once more after another nine 

 days of time. All told, the average 

 was more than 300 pounds per colony 

 from sage. 



His bees work lightly all winter on 

 the eucalyptus or gums, if the weather 

 is favorable. However, there is little 

 dependence to be placed on the honey 

 from this source, and it is important 

 to have the bees with honey enough 

 to carry them through. He gets his 

 crop from sage in spring and moves 

 to the bean fields about July 1. Al- 

 though sage may fail, he regards the 

 bean crop as almost certain. East 

 winds sometimes blast the bloom of 

 the beans, but this is rare. They 

 bloom through a long period, begin- 

 ning in July and continuing until Sep- 

 tember. The bloom is prolonged with 

 irrigation, 111*- average from beans is 

 about 50 pounds per colony per year. 

 \ special featui e of i he M endleson 

 equipment is the series of big tanks, 

 four each holding 5e\ eii Ions, two 

 eighl ton- and one ten Ions, provid- 

 ing a combined stot age capacitj oi 

 in i v i. mr tons In addition to these 

 he has se\ era! four-ton tanks. \ 1 1 < 1 



one disastrous experience, when he 

 li isi .1 ( , msiderable i n irtion of his 

 crop because he was unable to get 

 cans, he decided ne\ ei to let it hap- 

 pen again. The big tanks provide 

 against any such calamity in future. 

 With a crew of six men he has ex- 

 tracted and tilled with honey a seven- 

 ton tank every two days during the 

 rush of a good season. 



