. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. ANOTHER VIEW OF BROWN'S MOUNTAIN APIARY colonies, requeening most that were left. Last spring, after counting all that had bees, including a few nuclei, I had 90 colonies left, mostly with good Italian queens from the previous sea- son. Of course, I could tell then that we would have a fair season. So I arranged to get as much honey as I could with as little increase as possi- ble. By the end of the season I had 125 colonies in excellent condition with at least 1000 pounds of honey in the supers. I took off five extractings amounting to 9>^ tons (1
. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. ANOTHER VIEW OF BROWN'S MOUNTAIN APIARY colonies, requeening most that were left. Last spring, after counting all that had bees, including a few nuclei, I had 90 colonies left, mostly with good Italian queens from the previous sea- son. Of course, I could tell then that we would have a fair season. So I arranged to get as much honey as I could with as little increase as possi- ble. By the end of the season I had 125 colonies in excellent condition with at least 1000 pounds of honey in the supers. I took off five extractings amounting to 9>^ tons (19,000 pounds). " I believe if I had increased accord- ing to the Alexander method I would have had considerably more honey and. all empty hives full of bees. This would mean a great deal with our pres- ent excellent prospects. "I am sure that a great many Cali- fornia bee-men make a mistake by not keeping young queens. I find that a vigorous young queen, if well supplied with stores, will have a hive full of bees by the time the sage flow begins, without stimulating. This season I did not stimulate at all and will have to divide some of my colonies now (March 1-5) to keep them from swarm- ing. I have rearranged this apiary and expect to increase by the Alexander method; also by bringing swarms from the valley until I have from 250 to 300 colonies. "The other photograph is of my Lemon Heights apiary. Although it is in reach of considerable sage, the prin- cipal honey flow is from oranges and limabeans. It is located at the edge of the San Joaquin ranch, where from to 21,000 acres of beans are cul- tivated annually. The flow from the beans is of short duration. The aver- age yield runs from 30 to 70 pounds to the colony; but mostly a low average, although one season some colonies stored 2U0 pounds. The orange yield is sometimes a failure, which was the case last spring. "This apiary is run mostly for bulk comb honey, a large part of which I sell for bot
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectbees, bookyear1861
