The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1903-07-14
BUSY ARIZONA BEES.
Large Store of Sweets Laid Up In
Hidden Places.
Tons OF the Treasure Taken from the
Flowers of ths .southwoHt@rn
Desert Great sport for
Honey Hunters.

The greatest crop of honey ever
known in Arizona is that OF the pres
ent year. The average product of the
territory is somewhat in excess of
100000 pounds. This year it will be
far in excess of that amount-prob-
ably double. The greater part of
this honey will find a market in Chi
cago, reports the Chronicle.
Strange as it may seem, the mes
quite and cactus, which flourish with
out water, provide the bees with a
honey far superior to that from eul-
tivated plants, and the blossom and
fruit of the cactus are even better
than the mesquite blossom. The
most handsome of desert flowers
grow on the hundreds of varieties of
cactus. One of the most beautiful is
that of the Cereus Giganteus. the or
gan cactus, generally known by it's
Spanish appellation of the "Saguara,"
Arizona's most typical plant, that
towers in great, green, fiuted shafts,
the most conspicuous and oldest sub
ject on all the plains. In the late
springtime each saguara is crowned
by mass of brilliant, silken white
flowers, sometimes over 100 in
bunch. Each blossom is about four
inches across. Nearly all develop to
fruit, the ''petahaya." the most
palatable of the wild products, and in
the blossom and the fruit the wild
bees and the tanned ones find the es-
sence OF honey. The prickly pear, the
night-blooming cereus, the cholla, the
doubly barbed terror of the desert,
the ocatilla and many others give
honey to the bees, while the wild
roses of the rocks and the thousands
of smaller flowers aid in furnishing
the most delicately favored honey
known TO the apiaries.
In the Salt River valley bees work
for longer period than in any other
locality, a crop of 200 pounds of
honey so each hive being not unusual,
while an average OF 100 pounds for
the season is maintained From
Phoenix and Tempe alone are shipped
about 100000 pounds of honey each
year, nearly all of it being separated
or strained.
The wild bees of the desert and
mountains provide an interesting
study and honey-hunting is most
unique sport, which is not without its
dangers, but with recompense suffi-
GENTLY delightful TO repay one for its
difficulties. In the cavities of the
highest rocks the bees gather in
great swarms and store their supply
OF food. With remarkable sagacity
they choose the most inaccessible
spots and frequently find places
which battle all ingenuity of even the
Indian, the most persistent seeker of
honey. Frequently great boards of
honey are found in caves and down
the sides of steep cliffs, where thou
sands of bees have stored their
products for perhaps scores of years,
and sometimes as much as thou
sand pounds of honey are taken from
such places. The Indian bee hunter
many times risks his life to obtain
the nectar of the wild bees, and
swings himself at the end of frail
rope, far down the sides of steep
precipice. Neither is his danger end
'ed there, for If not well protected
from the onslaught of the bees, some
times in dense swarms of thousands,
he is likely to become a victim of the.
angry defenders. Indeed, not long
since a Papago young man was stung
so badly while robbing a wild hive
that he died soon after his comrades
had pulled him up to the top of the
cliff
On the desert, too, the bees make
their homes, sometimes swarming in
the shell of the decayed cactus and
often in caves along arroyos and the
beds of the large streams. Very often
they swarm close to the agricultural
districts and it is a frequent and very
easy thing for the ranchers to gather
them into hives and hold them. One
rancher few miles southeast of
Phoenix has on his property small
isolated butte, near the top of which
is small cave. From this piece of
rock the owner has gathered honey
enough to pay for his ranch. Several
years ago great swarm of bees. set
tied in the cave and the owner has
gradually tanned them, and each year
gathers from 1000 to 1000 pounds of
honey from them.