Rocky Ford enterprise., 1894-07-26
Remarkable Development ofone Of
the Valleys most Profitable
Industries.
"Iow doth the busy bee.
Improve each shining hour,
And gathering honey all the day
Erou, every opening flower"


For few years only has the
Arkansas valley of Colorado had a
good reputation for general agri-
cultural and horticultural resour-
ces. Fremont county has been
noted for its fruit, but the lower
part of the valley, of which Rocky
Ford is the center and principal
town, is famous in three lines of
of agricultural industry. We re-
fer especially to fruit, hogs and
bees. For adaptability to wide
range of fruit culture few sections
equal Otero county. It is a para
disc for hogs, said paradise being
made by the luxuriant alfalfa
fields and the fact that no other
section of Colorado grows corn like
this portion of the valley. And it
| is just beginning to be demon
strated that as land for the apiar-
ist it has no superior, not even
famed California.
Wishing to investigate the ad-
vantages which Otero county offers
for the production of honey we
have recently visited several of
the leading apairists of this neigh
borhood. Henry f. Hagen, living
Just in the borders of Rocky Ford,
devotes his entire time to the bee
business, and has a place we'll
worth a visit. Surrounding his
neat home is a young orchard,
scattered thickly through which
are the workshops of his industri-
Gus servants, who forage off the
country, work for nothing and
board themselves. At the home
apiary, and the branch establish
ment four miles west, Mr.. Hagen
has total of POT colonies. And
honey is now being stored from the
alfalfa bloom faster than two men
can remove it from the hives. The
amount of honey taken recently
has been from 1000 pounds tc
one one-half tons weekly, ayerag-
ing ton week. The quality
is remarkably fine. Looking
through the glass fronts of the
cases the comb honey is a brilliant
white, Mr.. Hagen takes great
care in preparing it for the mark.
ct, the utmost cleanliness and
neatness characterizing all the
handling. His product will go in
to the eastern markets having Q
most attractive appearance. And
it not only looks most toothsome
but proved to be SO when sampled
by the ENTERPRISE family at Mr.
! Haeen's dinner table. Each case
of IA pounds Mr. Hagen wraps il
paper and marks to indicate the
grade, such as "No. L." or "fancy
white" A large proportion of the
product of this year will go on the
market as clancy white" and pass
inspection from the most critical
judge.
Protected,by wells over our faces
we inspected the inner workings OF
the bee hives and found that there
is very much of science connected
with the management of bees
Mr.. Hagen seemed to be on good
terms with his diminutive workers,
opening and removing all the
frames from the hives without pro
lection and receiving no stings. AT
one hive, where half-gallon of
bees were clustered on the outside
he scooped up a few hundred in
his bare hand without injury. Il
seemed easy enough but we did
not repeat the experiment.
Mr.. Hagen finds that the hy-
brid bees, that is a a.mixture of the
Italian with the common black
bees, make the whitest honey.
In the management of his apiary
he uses the latest improvements
both in hives and the use of comb
and surplus foundation, etc. The
| use of foundation, which is pure
bees wax in thin sheets, saves the
bees much time, as to mako one
pound of wax taxes the bees time
and energies as much as making
10 pounds of honey. With a
small slip of surplus foundation
put in each pound section, and rs
of these put in q super" and plac-
ed on the top of the hive, the bees
are ready, to proceed to honey max
ing without any waste of time.
During our visit at Mr.. Hagen's q
swarm of bees settled on one of
of the small pear trees in his
apiary. A hive was set on box,
the tree bent over, and one vigor-
Gus shake of the tree dumped al
most the entire colony on top of
the hive, and soon all were finding
their way within. The contrast
is great between this method of
hiving a swarm and the old-fash.
ioned way with the beating of tin
pans, blowing of horns and gener-
al uproar. This colony Mr.. H.
thoug ght would produce % pounds
of honey within the next week.
For the production of strained
honey Mr.. Hagen has an extractor.
This is machine about as large
as a barrel in which two large