388 The Honey-Makers 



According to Burroughs, " Bees will go three or four 

 miles in quest of honey, but it is a great advantage to move 

 the hive near the good pasturage, as has been the custom 

 from the earliest times in the Old World. Some enter- 

 prising person, taking a hint perhaps from the ancient 

 Egyptians, who had floating apiaries on the Nile, ha? 

 tried the experiment of floating several hundred colonies 

 north on the Mississippi, starting from New Orleans and 

 following the opening season up, thus realizing a sort of 

 perpetual May or June, the chief attraction being the 

 blossoms of the river willow, which yield honey of rare 

 excellence. Some of the bees were no doubt left behind, 

 but the amount of virgin honey secured must have been 

 very great. In September they should have begun the 

 return trip, following the retreating summer south." 



To-day the bee-keepers of California follow the flowers up 

 the mountain sides or over the plains, a bee-keeper 

 sometimes transporting his hives a hundred miles in a 

 season. When sage is in bloom the provident bee-keeper 

 takes his charges to the chaparral, and when the great 

 bean fields are blooming along the coast the bee-man 

 appears with his hives, that the bees may store hira a few 

 tons of honey, which will vie in value wiih the returns the 

 owners of the gardens get from the crops they raise, and 

 for which they in part have to thank the bees, because 

 of their valuable work in fertilization. 



The year i860 was a memorable one for the hive-bees 

 of the United States, for there came the first consignment 

 of their formidable rival, the Italian honey-bee. So 

 prolific and so industrious is this beautiful golden creature 

 that it has gone far towards supplanting the brown bee in 

 this country. 



It is not a case of extermination, however, as is that of 

 the American Red Man, but of amalgamation. The new- 



