The Portland daily press., 1891-03-02
A LAND OF HONEY.
Where Busylsees:Find MOST Con-
GENIAL Homo.

genial Home.
rcorresnondence of the Press.l
O. En.n,crsco. Feb. %. "A feature
of~ Sontbern California most surprising
10 me- is the honey industry. Stories
thereof, which sound like the widest ex-
aeoeration, are told in almost every To-
atty of that part of the state. If they
we're not so amply corroborated one
would be justified in placing them in the
category of fish and snake yarns, but as
II Is the stranger cannot but marvel at
what he sees and hears Of in the honey
line. 1t is, of course, well known that
Southern California in general, and San
Diego county in particular, is the center
of the honey industry in this country.
This is easily understood when one
remembers that it is a land of per-
petual flowers, in which bees can work
all the year round, and have no occasion
to lay up In their hives from four to six
months OF the year to eat up the prod
uct OF their summers work. But that
the bees should so overrun the country
as to almost render themselves nuisances
| was not prepared to believe.
During casual conversation at Los
Angeles, in which the subject of bees
came up, was told of an incident which
excited my interest in the question, and
l made it point to bring up the subject
in each town subsequently visited.
At a village near Los Angeles, when
carpenters went to overhaul the school
house after the vacation, they found the
doors to the cloak rooms apparently her.
medically sealed. They succeeded after
an effort in prying open the doors, and
found the cloak rooms literally packed
full of honey, colonies of bees having
settled in the rooms during the vacation.
My informant did not know how much
honey was taken from the peculiarly To-
Gated colonies, but said two pailfuls fell
to his share in the distribution.
At Riverside was shown church, in
the steeple of which bees had colonized,
and nearly ton of honey rewarded the
daring of the man who took the job Of
Kidding the church of its unwelcome
tenants.
1t Is not uncommon for bees to settle
down to the task of filling the spaces be-
tween the walls of residences with honey.
and an open attic window but invites
wandering swar1ns of bees to locate
therein.
They settle down to business in vine
yards, and literally burden the shortstocks
of vines with great sheets of honeycomb
in the open air. In every cavity in the
scrub oaks and other scattering trees
they take up their abode, and in the foot
hills the caves and gopher holes invite
straying colonies to set up i'll business.
1t seems that they accumulate more rap
idly than the farmers care to have them,
and in such cases many young colonies
are permitted to swarm and depart in
search of home without any effort to
prevent them leaving.
Many extensive bee ranches are to be
found on every hand, and a vast amount
of honey is annually put on the markets
from this region. At Santa Anna l
shipped home a case of the purest and
richest honey ever tasted, produced on
the ranch of Nine. Modjeska, who owns
large place short distance from that
town, and whose revenue from her bees
alone is ample to keep the wolf from her
door without her ever again appearing
behind the footlights.
Comb honey brings the highest prices,
but am told that there is more clear
money in strained honey at even less
than half the price of comb, because of
the added expense and labor necessary
to obtain the perfect comb product.
Greater care is necessary in the hives,
the little squares of which have to be
measured with precision as to weight
when filed in order to make the comb
perfect and ready to be transferred from
the hive to the shelf of the grocer and
thence to the table of the epicure with
out being touched. Empty goods boxes
and barrels set upside down are good
enough for hives, and will be filed with
equally pure honey, but not in such
shape as to be handled In the comb with
out breaking and running out. 1t makes
no difference how roughly it may be
handled when it is to be strained, hence
strained honey may be readily bought
at first hand at from three to five cents
apound. Four cents may be considered
an average price to the producer, and at
that figure good profit may be realized.
To my surprise, for I had wondered
what on earth it was made for, the ON
nipresent white sage brush of these i'm
mense stretches of verdureless and water
less prairies produces the best honey.
White sage honey is almost as translucent
and pure as water, and has peculiarly
delicate flavor.
To get the best results from bees, even
m this region where they thrive so
abundanty, requires intelligent care in
providing them with the proper kinds of
forage" Certain blossoms, it seems,
carry offensive favors into the honey,
and if one seeks quantity alone rather
than quality it is an easy matter to in
duce the bees, unconsciously to them
selves, to adulterate their product.
Coarse cheap brown sugar or glucose
placed near to hives viii be rapidly
transferred to the comb by the bees.
They have no secret chemical labora-
tory in which to change the nature of
the baser substitute into real honey, SO
that the fact that you buy honey in the
comb is no guarantee that it is not adul-
terated. But did not learn of any ex-
tensive doctoring of the natural product
of flowers during my brief and super
fetal study of the auestiop~in southern
California
w. G. b.