The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-07-16
MONEY IS MADE
 IN RAISING BEES Southwest Now Offers Greatest
 Fields STORIES OF THE INDUSTRY Annual Honey Output In the United States Is 75,ooo,ooo Pounds Comb
 Honey and soo,ooo,ooo
 Pounds Extracted.
STORIES OF THE INDUSTRY
BY FREDERIC j. HAsKlN.

lively and useful insect. Did they but know the experience of others they would have the joyous knowledge that country life Is not an absolute essential in bee keeping. In fact, some of the largest and most profitable colonies of the east are kept in towns and cities. In the very heart of busy New York is a profitable apiary the roof of a sky-scraper being utilized for this industry. In Cincinnati business man with taste for bee cul- ture conducted for years a. founshing market for honey made by thirty or forty bee colonies that he kept on the roof of his business house. There are innumera- ble roof apiaries in Washington, the most noted being on the top of the Bond build ing, near the center of the city. Most cities are rich in flowers that dot the parks and private gardens, and In bloom ing trees. Washington Is the richest of all cities in honey-maklng materials. The American lindens, or basswoods, that line several of the longest streets of the cap ital, are freighted with more nectar than the hardest working bees can ever take away.
 As honey culture involves little physical labor on the part of the owner of the hives It is business of profit. As a rule he invests In several colonies, puts them under the vine and fig tree of his back yard and huns to himself a refrain to the effect Let the bees do the work, do the work, and when the combs are full he smokes the startled colony into stupid ity and takes away the golden wealth for his own and his neighbours uses. There are over 100000 persons engaged in bee culture throughout the country in varying degrees of endeaVor and profit. There are about 100 apiarian societies composed of the people who make a regular business of bee raising on a scientific basis, while there are thousands more who keep a few hives on the farm or in the suburbs and turn an extra penny fin the fall by selling the wax and the extracted honey.
 The annual output of honey in the Unit ed States is estimated at 75,000,000 pounds of comb honey and 300000,000 pounds of extracted honey. The Hawaiian Islands alone raise 500 tons a year. The average value of this honey is ten cents a pound. About fifteen steam-poower factories and a very large number of handpower fac tories are used in expressing the honey from the comb, Several other Factories, hard at work, manage to supply the mill lions of little cases which the apiarian offers his bees each year with the un- derstandlng that they are to pack pound of honey in each.
 While the output in the section east of the Mississippi Is great, that of the south west Is greater. In the southern part of California bee culture has become @ most important industry. The fruit trees that blossom the year through and he almost endless stretches of alfalfa offer a forage ground for the bees that is unequaled else l Nl,s, ~at over the ground in methodlcal and regular rows that suggest a queer flora come to rival the similarly placed orange and olive trees on neighboring ranches, and from nearby houses keepers loook after the tiny workmen in most thorough and scientific fashion.
 Not only is the flora there more than enough to support the local colonies of bees but throughout the whole country tAe natural supply of nectar would support most profitaby ten times as many bees as now forage on 1t. Fruit trees, tulip or poplar trees, clover, lindens, buckwheat sourwood alfalfa, chestnut palmettos and numerous other trees and wild flow , CTS offer abundant forage from early spring until late fall. Each honey-pro- ducng plant has two distinctive areas that In which it will produce honey, and the larger one in which 1t will thrive in , all healthfulness, but be less prodigal of its nectar. Alfalfa, for example, grows in profitable abundance on the east side ei the Mississippi river but offers little honey to the pleading bee, while west of the river in the honey producing districts alfalfa is the mainstay of the apiary. Just when bees were introduced into the United States Is a matter of speculation . They were not brought by the very earli- est colonists, though one finds mention oi bees and honey in tales of New England that date back to the close of the Seven ] teenth century. In 1I63 the Spaniards . l brought them to Florida, and whether the Spanish padres and settlers took them tc the southwestern and Mexican settlements | at an earlier date Is not known, but 1t is presumabe they did. Wax for candle making Is an essential in all Catholic countries and dependence on importation was not so sure in colonial days as on home manufacture.
 The common brown or German bee was the first that was coonized in America She proved thrifty and reliable in all things but her temper, and that was bad i, In 1860 the department of agriculture , brought over some Italian bees with their golden queen, and they have long enjoyed , | popularity among bee keepers. About 1SSC Cyprian bees were brought from Cyprus , where they established a reputation since , unequaled as honey gatherers They have also galneQ d more urenNlaDle reputation as being the most vicious or all bees one keeper solemnly affirming that a colony which he had angered drove him and his whole family into the cellar and kept them prisoners there all day. The Syrian , or Holy Land bee was brought over next and was found to be very similar Tn . character and habits to the Cyprlan while the gray and gentle Carniolans won great favor.
 The last bees brought over, and a kind whose popularity bids fair to make them in great demand and drive their value up to pretty stiff prices, Is the Caucasian pee from Russia. This bee, splendid work CT and a very reliable citizen, is noted , for the fact that though endowed with all : a bees physical faculties, she will not sting. At the government experiment sta tions and at private apiaries where she has been taken, she and her fellow work | CTS will crawl all over ones hands or | face, or allow themselves to be handled without flying into a fury about it and using the ever ready sting as the German bee will invariably do. It is expected that | pure strains of the Caucasian will be in- troduced as rapidly as possible, and so cause greater spread of the bee keeping | industry, since the most objectionable feature that of contending with belliger- . ent bees. will be removed.
 The study of the habits of bees is one of the most fascinating of nature studies and reveals marvellous series of interest ing facts in their physical. economic and l industrial life that cannot be paralleled