

ee- 



\eepeps /AeViecu. 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL 



Devoted to tl^e Interests of Hoqey Producers. 



$L00 A YEAR, 



W. Z. HUTCHINSON, EdltOP 8l PPOp. 



VOL, VI, FLINT, MICHIGAN, JAN, 10. 1893, NO. 



Kotes from the Pacific Coast.— Some of the 



Needs and Necessities of California 



Bee-Kesping. 



.TNO. H. MABTIN. 





( )UR leader in 



what be - keepers 

 most Ueed attract- 

 ed Tn> Httention, 

 and, :ilthough I 

 shall not agree to 

 write a hest arti- 

 cle, I wi:l write a 

 short one, and per- 

 hap.s in that re- 

 spect it will be the 

 best. Without yo- 

 intj into preliminaries and reviewing the 

 past, I will apply my observatif)ns to things 

 of the present. You are aware that I have 

 had quite a long field if not a wide one for 

 cultivation, and the most striking feature in 

 relation to the permanancy and success of 

 bee-keeping is the intermittent nature of the 

 work, and the further west we go the longer 

 the intermission. Here in California, after 

 an apiary has been established and our hon- 

 ey yield secured and disposed of, then, from 

 August to the next March, the bees need but 

 little attention. The apiarist usually has 

 some other business i^ which he gets so 

 much interested that the bees are neglected, 

 and if the season is a poor one the neglect 

 amounts to the shameful. 



The only remedy at present, perhaps, is 

 the practice of migratory bee-keeping wher- 

 ever it can be practiced, and California is 

 perhaps one of the best fields for the prac- 

 tice of this method. Commencing at the 

 sea coast and gradually moving back into 

 the mountains the season would be drawn 

 out several months, but at present the ener- 

 gies of the beekeepers and the appliances 

 are not equal to the occasion and it is not 

 practiced. There are several points however 

 to be considered should any desire to put 

 this plan into practice. If we inigrate we 

 are liable to interfere with another man's 

 field and that would not be just. Then every 

 move adds to the cost of production and 

 with extracted honey at five cents and comb 

 at ten cents per pound, such additions would 

 be ruinous. It would seem almost impossi- 

 l)le to reduce the cost of production, but I 

 think it could be done with the perfection of 

 pre'^ent appliances. 



The a ueen excluding honey board and bee- 

 escape are helps but they do not work with 

 the perfection we wish, for queens will get 

 through not only once in a while, but twice 

 in a while, and the bee escape works the 

 same way in clearing extracting supers. The 

 perfection of the swarm catchers, and the 

 fact of having at last a non-swarming apiary 

 would be another step in the reduction plan. 

 Another very important point especially ap- 

 plicable in this climate and not thoroughly 

 considered, is a better plan for rearing and 

 having on hand at all times an unfail- 

 ing supply of extra - good queens. That 



