The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-25
THE BEE KEEPERS.
Though Only Half a Crop of
Honey This Year the
Hives Were Increased.
A Necessity for United Action
to Insure the Growing of
Forage for the Apiaries.
Written for THE CALL
BY N. LEVERING.

There is perhaps no branch of industry
that has claimed greater attention of the
learned and the lovers of nature and
| science from the earliest dawn of civliza-
| ton to the present time than agriculture.
TO many this may seem erroneous. but
historic facts reaching far back into the
misty past will warrant the assertion.
The sacred Scriptures abound with many
illusions to bees and the importance of
honey as an article of food and commerce.
Profane history is replete with votaries
among the learned to this pleasing sci
ence. The large mum Der Of works upon bees.
published nearly 1900 years ago, showed
the importance of the industry at that
time. Hyginus, lover of the industry,
made collections of all works that related
to bees, of still greater antiquity. Arts
totle, Varro, Celus, Pliny and many other.
wrote upon the subject of apicultures
Aristomachus devoted sixty years to the
study of the nature and habit of bee S.
Philipicus retired to Gods first temples,
the woody solitude, that he might have
better facilities for acquainting himself
with their habits. Virgil sang in sweetest
strains and awakened additional charms
for the bee. His fourth Georgia" the
grandest poem of the Romanerd, is wholly
devoted to the proverbial bee.
De Montford in 1916 enumerated the
various authors on bees up to his time at
near 600. These works, though imperfect,
lead to further and more important dis
coveries in the colony of the hive, when, in
the latter part of the seventeenth century,
Swarmmerdam published his treatise on
insects, which led to additional lnvestiga-
tons. This was followed by Miraldi, the
inventor of the glass hive. He was fol-
lowed by the more observing Ray and
Willoughby, who in turn awakened the
searching mild of Reaumur, and brought
forth his memorable work that shed adj
ditional light along the agricultural path.
Its genial rays wrought up the inquiring
mind of the blind but patient Huber, who,
through the eyes of trusted friends lifted
the foodgates of his reason and poured
forth food of limpid light upon the
agricultural We rid and gave fresh impetus
to the industry. Rev. Mr.. DijierZon Dyer
SOM later on entered deeper into the
mysteries of the hive and created ad-
ditional interest in the bee world by dis
coveres of more reliable character. Close
stroth with his movable frame hive and
matchless treatise on the honey bee, which
is pre- eminent over all similar publica-
tons, placing agriculture in its present
advanced condition by having awakened
the slumbering genius of inventive minds
which have supplied wanted machinery
that now makes agriculture pleasure and
pastime, free from the fumes of birthstone
of former years, which is now left to be
hurled from the pulpit at evildoers.
Agriculture in California, more espe-
cially in the southern portion of
the State, is now one of the
leading industries. General Fremont in
his report of his explorations of California
gave it as his opinion that the honey bee
could not exist west of the Sierra Nevadas.
No little busy bee there,
To sip nectar from the flowers fair,
Nor build snowy waxen cell,
/ And store delicious hydromel
He was made we'll aware of his error
many years after when Southern Califor-
MIA became proverbial as the paradise of
bees and for the production of the best
honey in the world. The partial failures
of the past few years would seem that this
paradise is gravitating toward paradise
lost. The gradual climatic changes that
seem to have taken place in the past few
years, cool winds that dry up the nectar
during the honey flower bloom, cannot
we'll be overcome, but loss of honey pro-
ducng plants from cultivation of lands
and stock grazing can be much improved
and forage restored by planting of trees
and vegetation whose bloom yields nectar
of the desired grade. The year 1894 was a
memorable one in the history of agriculture
in California-the southern portions of the