Year: 1876

NEW York SUM-


Mr.. J. s. HARRISON, of San Diego
County, California, arrived in this city


yesterday with ten Car loads of honey
each Car containing twenty thousand


pounds. This vast aggregation of bes
labor was taken from Mr.. Harbison's six
apiaries on the sides of the coast range
of mountains, as near to the Mexican
lines as they we'll can be and yet claim


protection of the Stars and Stripes
Twenty-Five years ago Mr.. Harrison


made ir in the bee world by selling
at one time two thousand pounds o.


honey, the product of his apiary, nsal


New Castle, Pennsylvania. So much


honey had never before been raised by 8
single producer, and the sale led hun


dreds of staid farmers to embark in what


looked like q most profitable field o


industry. The result was not fiatteriDg
Short seasons and limited pasturags


forbade profitable bee culture. Old-fash


ioned hives were then the only kind
known. The modern means of robbing
bees without killing them had not beer
thought of.


Having invented hive that enabled
the culturist to obtain successive crops o.
honey from the same colony of bees, Mr.
HARRISON began to look for region that
would supply the food for the bees. He
searched for this in the equable climate Oi


the Pacific coast, and found it in a mar
row strip ofcountry in the extreme south
western portion of the United States,
now known as the bee belt of California.
Sheep-raising was the only industry OF
the natives found by Mr.. HARRISON
when he first visited the country. The
country inland was thought good enough
for sheep-pasurage, but no one dreamed
that the soil could be made 10 produce
grain in paying quantities. Timber was
confined to the bottoms of the running
streams and to the canons, the valleys
and hillsides being covered with a agrOwth
of stunted brushwood, from which sprang
a luxuriant growth of white sage, sumac
and other Towering shrubs, which bloom
there nine months of the year.


Mr.. Harbison's first apiary was started
on a mountain side, twenty miles east
of Diego. He embarked for the West
with seventy hives of bees, but these
were reduced to sixty-twO by casualties.
From them he now has six apiaries, and a
total of three hundred hives. He en-
plOys fifteen men constantly, and is reap.
ing rich profits from many thousands of
acres that must otherwise have been a
barren waste. He soon had many i'm
itators, and now not less than three hum
dred persons are taking honey along the
" Bee Belt"


The Califoria bee season, Mr.. HARRISON
says, begins by Feb. l. In March or
April the bees swarm, and the bee cul-
turist has lively times in saving the
swarms. The science has become so
systematized now that the apiculturist
knows within day or two when given
hive may be expected to swarm, and as
the young bees always settle somewhere
near the parent hive, at least once before
selecting their new quarters, a swarm is
seldom lost. The flowers are at the
height of their luxuriance in May and
June, and the taking of the honey is
begun usually about May 20, and the
bees are kept at work as long as the
flowers last. They cease to bloom in
sufficient quantity to more than subist
the bees in the early part of August
but the little workers arc able to find
enough to live Oh without consuming
their stores as late as October. 1t will
thus be seen that the harvest time is
never longer than three months, and is
often much less. After October begins,
although the air is still mild and spring
like, the bees cease to work, and retire
into a semi-dormant condition. Once
every eight or ten days a colony will
turn out at midday and fly around for
an hour or two in the sunshine, but they
never fly far from the hive, and are never
seen at work.


The food of the bees in the bee belt is
generally the flower of the white sage, a
plant that closely resembles the garden
sage. This is not to be confounded with
the sage brush of Nevada and Utah,
which is of the WOODWORK species, and
has the family bitterness. Next to the
sage in Importance as bee food is the
sumac, a shrub that grows in California
its poisonous quality. In fact,
there is no poisonous Towering plant in
the bee range, and the honey has none of
the colicky qualities that make Eastern
grown honey Objectionable. The honey
IS graded by the culturist according to
the plant from which it is derived. That
made from sage flowers, being clearest
and most aromatic, is most valuable.


Mr.. HARRISON says that notwithstand-
ing the great crop that he has brought to
this market, he will probably not realize
more than one thousand dollars after
1educting expenses and interest on capi-
tai. He had to dig his bee ranch out of
the wilderness. The roads thereto over
rocky mountain sides and deep canons
we're built at heavy cost. The contin-
lous labor of fifteen men is needed in
she care ofpropagation and harvesting
The hives, boxes for shipment and house,
nold supplies have all to be transported
rom San Diego, forty miles from his
most remote apiary. 1t costs about four
cents, gold, to freight pound of honey
nu water To San ErancisCO and bY rail to