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twg_000000041400 | violent. The winds, which in settled weather come from the northwest, veer round into the opposite direction, the sky fills gradually and evenly with one general cloud, from which, the rain falls steadily, often for days in succession, at a temperature of about or . More than seventy-five per cent. of all the rain of this season came from the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041401 | northwest, down the coast over southeastern Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon, though the local winds of these circular storms blow from the southeast. One magnificent local storm from the northwest fell on March . A massive, round-browed cloud came swelling and thundering over the flowery plain in most imposing majesty, its bossy front burning white and purple in the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041402 | full blaze of the sun, while warm rain poured from its ample fountains like a cataract, beating down flowers and bees, and flooding the dry watercourses as suddenly as those of Nevada are flooded by the so-called cloudbursts. But in less than half an hour not a trace of the heavy, mountain-like cloud-structure was left in the sky, and the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041403 | bees were on the wing, as if nothing more gratefully refreshing could have been sent them. By the end of January four species of plants were in flower, and five or six mosses had already adjusted their hoods and were in the prime of life; but the flowers were not sufficiently numerous as yet to affect greatly the general green | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041404 | of the young leaves. Violets made their appearance in the first week of February, and toward the end of this month the warmer portions of the plain were already golden with myriads of the flowers of rayed composite. This was the full springtime. The sunshine grew warmer and richer, new plants bloomed every day; the air became more tuneful with | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041405 | humming wings, and sweeter with the fragrance of the opening flowers. Ants and ground squirrels were getting ready for their summer work, rubbing their benumbed limbs, and sunning themselves on the husk-piles before their doors, and spiders were busy mending their old webs, or weaving new ones. In March, the vegetation was more than doubled in depth and color; claytonia, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041406 | calandrinia, a large white gilia, and two nemophilas were in bloom, together with a host of yellow composite, tall enough now to bend in the wind and show wavering ripples of shade. In April, plant-life, as a whole, reached its greatest height, and the plain, over all its varied surface, was mantled with a close, furred plush of purple and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041407 | golden corollas. By the end of this month, most of the species had ripened their seeds, but undecayed, still seemed to be in bloom from the numerous corolla-like involucres and whorls of chaffy scales of the composite. In May, the bees found in flower only a few deep-set liliaceous plants and eriogonums. June, July, August, and September is the season | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041408 | of rest and sleep,a winter of dry heat,followed in October by a second outburst of bloom at the very driest time of the year. Then, after the shrunken mass of leaves and stalks of the dead vegetation crinkle and turn to dust beneath the foot, as if it had been baked in an oven, _Hemizonia virgata_, a slender, unobtrusive little | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041409 | plant, from six inches to three feet high, suddenly makes its appearance in patches miles in extent, like a resurrection of the bloom of April. I have counted upward of flowers, five eighths of an inch in diameter, on a single plant. Both its leaves and stems are so slender as to be nearly invisible, at a distance of a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041410 | few yards, amid so showy a multitude of flowers. The ray and disk flowers are both yellow, the stamens purple, and the texture of the rays is rich and velvety, like the petals of garden pansies. The prevailing wind turns all the heads round to the southeast, so that in facing northwestward we have the flowers looking us in the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041411 | face. In my estimation, this little plant, the last born of the brilliant host of compositae that glorify the plain, is the most interesting of all. It remains in flower until November, uniting with two or three species of wiry eriogonums, which continue the floral chain around December to the spring flowers of January. Thus, although the main bloom and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041412 | honey season is only about three months long, the floral circle, however thin around some of the hot, rainless months, is never completely broken. How long the various species of wild bees have lived in this honey-garden, nobody knows; probably ever since the main body of the present flora gained possession of the land, toward the close of the glacial | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041413 | period. The first brown honey-bees brought to California are said to have arrived in San Francisco in March, . A bee-keeper by the name of Shelton purchased a lot, consisting of twelve swarms, from some one at Aspinwall, who had brought them from New York. When landed at San Francisco, all the hives contained live bees, but they finally dwindled | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041414 | to one hive, which was taken to San Jos. The little immigrants flourished and multiplied in the bountiful pastures of the Santa Clara Valley, sending off three swarms the first season. The owner was killed shortly afterward, and in settling up his estate, two of the swarms were sold at auction for $ and $ respectively. Other importations were made, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041415 | from time to time, by way of the Isthmus, and, though great pains were taken to insure success, about one half usually died on the way. Four swarms were brought safely across the plains in , the hives being placed in the rear end of a wagon, which was stopped in the afternoon to allow the bees to fly and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041416 | feed in the floweriest places that were within reach until dark, when the hives were closed. In , two years after the time of the first arrivals from New York, a single swarm was brought over from San Jos, and let fly in the Great Central Plain. Bee-culture, however, has never gained much attention here, notwithstanding the extraordinary abundance of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041417 | honey-bloom, and the high price of honey during the early years. A few hives are found here and there among settlers who chanced to have learned something about the business before coming to the State. But sheep, cattle, grain, and fruit raising are the chief industries, as they require less skill and care, while the profits thus far have been | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041418 | greater. In honey sold here at from one and a half to two dollars per pound. Twelve years later the price had fallen to twelve and a half cents. In I sat down to dinner with a band of ravenous sheep-shearers at a ranch on the San Joaquin, where fifteen or twenty hives were kept, and our host advised us | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041419 | not to spare the large pan of honey he had placed on the table, as it was the cheapest article he had to offer. In all my walks, however, I have never come upon a regular bee-ranch in the Central Valley like those so common and so skilfully managed in the southern counties of the State. The few pounds of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041420 | honey and wax produced are consumed at home, and are scarcely taken into account among the coarser products of the farm. The swarms that escape from their careless owners have a weary, perplexing time of it in seeking suitable homes. Most of them make their way to the foot-hills of the mountains, or to the trees that line the banks | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041421 | of the rivers, where some hollow log or trunk may be found. A friend of mine, while out hunting on the San Joaquin, came upon an old coon trap, hidden among some tall grass, near the edge of the river, upon which he sat down to rest. Shortly afterward his attention was attracted to a crowd of angry bees that | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041422 | were flying excitedly about his head, when he discovered that he was sitting upon their hive, which was found to contain more than pounds of honey. Out in the broad, swampy delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, the little wanderers have been known to build their combs in a bunch of rushes, or stiff, wiry grass, only slightly | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041423 | protected from the weather, and in danger every spring of being carried away by floods. They have the advantage, however, of a vast extent of fresh pasture, accessible only to themselves. The present condition of the Grand Central Garden is very different from that we have sketched. About twenty years ago, when the gold placers had been pretty thoroughly exhausted, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041424 | the attention of fortune-seekersnot home-seekerswas, in great part, turned away from the mines to the fertile plains, and many began experiments in a kind of restless, wild agriculture. A load of lumber would be hauled to some spot on the free wilderness, where water could be easily found, and a rude box-cabin built. Then a gang-plow was procured, and a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041425 | dozen mustang ponies, worth ten or fifteen dollars apiece, and with these hundreds of acres were stirred as easily as if the land had been under cultivation for years, tough, perennial roots being almost wholly absent. Thus a ranch was established, and from these bare wooden huts, as centers of desolation, the wild flora vanished in ever-widening circles. But the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041426 | arch destroyers are the shepherds, with their flocks of hoofed locusts, sweeping over the ground like a fire, and trampling down every rod that escapes the plow as completely as if the whole plain were a cottage garden-plot without a fence. But notwithstanding these destroyers, a thousand swarms of bees may be pastured here for every one now gathering honey. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041427 | The greater portion is still covered every season with a repressed growth of bee-flowers, for most of the species are annuals, and many of them are not relished by sheep or cattle, while the rapidity of their growth enables them to develop and mature their seeds before any foot has time to crush them. The ground is, therefore, kept sweet, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041428 | and the race is perpetuated, though only as a suggestive shadow of the magnificence of its wildness. The time will undoubtedly come when the entire area of this noble valley will be tilled like a garden, when the fertilizing waters of the mountains, now flowing to the sea, will be distributed to every acre, giving rise to prosperous towns, wealth, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041429 | arts, etc. Then, I suppose, there will be few left, even among botanists, to deplore the vanished primeval flora. In the mean time, the pure waste going onthe wanton destruction of the innocentsis a sad sight to see, and the sun may well be pitied in being compelled to look on. The bee-pastures of the Coast Ranges last longer and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041430 | are more varied than those of the great plain, on account of differences of soil and climate, moisture, and shade, etc. Some of the mountains are upward of feet in height, and small streams, springs, oozy bogs, etc., occur in great abundance and variety in the wooded regions, while open parks, flooded with sunshine, and hill-girt valleys lying at different | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041431 | elevations, each with its own peculiar climate and exposure, possess the required conditions for the development of species and families of plants widely varied. Next the plain there is, first, a series of smooth hills, planted with a rich and showy vegetation that differs but little from that of the plain itselfas if the edge of the plain had been | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041432 | lifted and bent into flowing folds, with all its flowers in place, only toned down a little as to their luxuriance, and a few new species introduced, such as the hill lupines, mints, and gilias. The colors show finely when thus held to view on the slopes; patches of red, purple, blue, yellow, and white, blending around the edges, the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041433 | whole appearing at a little distance like a map colored in sections. Above this lies the park and chaparral region, with oaks, mostly evergreen, planted wide apart, and blooming shrubs from three to ten feet high; manzanita and ceanothus of several species, mixed with rhamnus, cercis, pickeringia, cherry, amelanchier, and adenostoma, in shaggy, interlocking thickets, and many species of hosackia, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041434 | clover, monardella, castilleia, etc., in the openings. The main ranges send out spurs somewhat parallel to their axes, inclosing level valleys, many of them quite extensive, and containing a great profusion of sun-loving bee-flowers in their wild state; but these are, in great part, already lost to the bees by cultivation. Nearer the coast are the giant forests of the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041435 | redwoods, extending from near the Oregon line to Santa Cruz. Beneath the cool, deep shade of these majestic trees the ground is occupied by ferns, chiefly woodwardia and aspidiums, with only a few flowering plantsoxalis, trientalis, erythronium, fritillaria, smilax, and other shade-lovers. But all along the redwood belt there are sunny openings on hill-slopes looking to the south, where the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041436 | giant trees stand back, and give the ground to the small sunflowers and the bees. Around the lofty redwood walls of these little bee-acres there is usually a fringe of Chestnut Oak, Laurel, and Madroo, the last of which is a surpassingly beautiful tree, and a great favorite with the bees. The trunks of the largest specimens are seven or | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041437 | eight feet thick, and about fifty feet high; the bark red and chocolate colored, the leaves plain, large, and glossy, like those of _Magnolia grandiflora_, while the flowers are yellowish-white, and urn-shaped, in well-proportioned panicles, from five to ten inches long. When in full bloom, a single tree seems to be visited at times by a whole hive of bees | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041438 | at once, and the deep hum of such a multitude makes the listener guess that more than the ordinary work of honey-winning must be going on. How perfectly enchanting and care-obliterating are these withdrawn gardens of the woodslong vistas opening to the seasunshine sifting and pouring upon the flowery ground in a tremulous, shifting mosaic, as the light-ways in the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041439 | leafy wall open and close with the swaying breezeshining leaves and flowers, birds and bees, mingling together in springtime harmony, and soothing fragrance exhaling from a thousand thousand fountains! In these balmy, dissolving days, when the deep heart-beats of Nature are felt thrilling rocks and trees and everything alike, common business and friends are happily forgotten, and even the natural | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041440 | honey-work of bees, and the care of birds for their young, and mothers for their children, seem slightly out of place. To the northward, in Humboldt and the adjacent counties, whole hillsides are covered with rhododendron, making a glorious melody of bee-bloom in the spring. And the Western azalea, hardly less flowery, grows in massy thickets three to eight feet | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041441 | high around the edges of groves and woods as far south as San Luis Obispo, usually accompanied by manzanita; while the valleys, with their varying moisture and shade, yield a rich variety of the smaller honey-flowers, such as mentha, lycopus, micromeria, audibertia, trichostema, and other mints; with vaccinium, wild strawberry, geranium, calais, and goldenrod; and in the cool glens along | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041442 | the stream-banks, where the shade of trees is not too deep, spiraea, dog-wood, heteromeles, and calycanthus, and many species of rubus form interlacing tangles, some portion of which continues in bloom for months. Though the coast region was the first to be invaded and settled by white men, it has suffered less from a bee point of view than either | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041443 | of the other main divisions, chiefly, no doubt, because of the unevenness of the surface, and because it is owned and protected instead of lying exposed to the flocks of the wandering sheepmen. These remarks apply more particularly to the north half of the coast. Farther south there is less moisture, less forest shade, and the honey flora is less | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041444 | varied. The Sierra region is the largest of the three main divisions of the bee-lands of the State, and the most regularly varied in its subdivisions, owing to their gradual rise from the level of the Central Plain to the alpine summits. The foot-hill region is about as dry and sunful, from the end of May until the setting in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041445 | of the winter rains, as the plain. There are no shady forests, no damp glens, at all like those lying at the same elevations in the Coast Mountains. The social compositae of the plain, with a few added species, form the bulk of the herbaceous portion of the vegetation up to a height of feet or more, shaded lightly here | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041446 | and there with oaks and Sabine Pines, and interrupted by patches of ceanothus and buckeye. Above this, and just below the forest region, there is a dark, heath-like belt of chaparral, composed almost exclusively of _Adenostoma fasciculata_, a bush belonging to the rose family, from five to eight feet high, with small, round leaves in fascicles, and bearing a multitude | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041447 | of small white flowers in panicles on the ends of the upper branches. Where it occurs at all, it usually covers all the ground with a close, impenetrable growth, scarcely broken for miles. Up through the forest region, to a height of about feet above sea-level, there are ragged patches of manzanita, and five or six species of ceanothus, called | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041448 | deer-brush or California lilac. These are the most important of all the honey-bearing bushes of the Sierra. _Chamaebatia foliolosa_, a little shrub about a foot high, with flowers like the strawberry, makes handsome carpets beneath the pines, and seems to be a favorite with the bees; while pines themselves furnish unlimited quantities of pollen and honey-dew. The product of a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041449 | single tree, ripening its pollen at the right time of year, would be sufficient for the wants of a whole hive. Along the streams there is a rich growth of lilies, larkspurs, pedicularis, castilleias, and clover. The alpine region contains the flowery glacier meadows, and countless small gardens in all sorts of places full of potentilla of several species, spraguea, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041450 | ivesia, epilobium, and goldenrod, with beds of bryanthus and the charming cassiope covered with sweet bells. Even the tops of the mountains are blessed with flowers,dwarf phlox, polemonium, ribes, hulsea, etc. I have seen wild bees and butterflies feeding at a height of , feet above the sea. Many, however, that go up these dangerous heights never come down again. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041451 | Some, undoubtedly, perish in storms, and I have found thousands lying dead or benumbed on the surface of the glaciers, to which they had perhaps been attracted by the white glare, taking them for beds of bloom. From swarms that escaped their owners in the lowlands, the honey-bee is now generally distributed throughout the whole length of the Sierra, up | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041452 | to an elevation of feet above sea-level. At this height they flourish without care, though the snow every winter is deep. Even higher than this several bee-trees have been cut which contained over pounds of honey. The destructive action of sheep has not been so general on the mountain pastures as on those of the great plain, but in many | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041453 | places it has been more complete, owing to the more friable character of the soil, and its sloping position. The slant digging and down-raking action of hoofs on the steeper slopes of moraines has uprooted and buried many of the tender plants from year to year, without allowing them time to mature their seeds. The shrubs, too, are badly bitten, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041454 | especially the various species of ceanothus. Fortunately, neither sheep nor cattle care to feed on the manzanita, spiraea, or adenostoma; and these fine honey-bushes are too stiff and tall, or grow in places too rough and inaccessible, to be trodden under foot. Also the caon walls and gorges, which form so considerable a part of the area of the range, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041455 | while inaccessible to domestic sheep, are well fringed with honey-shrubs, and contain thousands of lovely bee-gardens, lying hid in narrow side-caons and recesses fenced with avalanche taluses, and on the top of flat, projecting headlands, where only bees would think to look for them. But, on the other hand, a great portion of the woody plants that escape the feet | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041456 | and teeth of the sheep are destroyed by the shepherds by means of running fires, which are set everywhere during the dry autumn for the purpose of burning off the old fallen trunks and underbrush, with a view to improving the pastures, and making more open ways for the flocks. These destructive sheep-fires sweep through nearly the entire forest belt | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041457 | of the range, from one extremity to the other, consuming not only the underbrush, but the young trees and seedlings on which the permanence of the forests depends; thus setting in motion a long train of evils which will certainly reach far beyond bees and beekeepers. [Illustration: WILD BEE GARDEN.] The plow has not yet invaded the forest region to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041458 | any appreciable extent, neither has it accomplished much in the foot-hills. Thousands of bee-ranches might be established along the margin of the plain, and up to a height of feet, wherever water could be obtained. The climate at this elevation admits of the making of permanent homes, and by moving the hives to higher pastures as the lower pass out | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041459 | of bloom, the annual yield of honey would be nearly doubled. The foot-hill pastures, as we have seen, fail about the end of May, those of the chaparral belt and lower forests are in full bloom in June, those of the upper and alpine region in July, August, and September. In Scotland, after the best of the Lowland bloom is | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041460 | past, the bees are carried in carts to the Highlands, and set free on the heather hills. In France, too, and in Poland, they are carried from pasture to pasture among orchards and fields in the same way, and along the rivers in barges to collect the honey of the delightful vegetation of the banks. In Egypt they are taken | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041461 | far up the Nile, and floated slowly home again, gathering the honey-harvest of the various fields on the way, timing their movements in accord with the seasons. Were similar methods pursued in California the productive season would last nearly all the year. The average elevation of the north half of the Sierra is, as we have seen, considerably less than | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041462 | that of the south half, and small streams, with the bank and meadow gardens dependent upon them, are less abundant. Around the head waters of the Yuba, Feather, and Pitt rivers, the extensive tablelands of lava are sparsely planted with pines, through which the sunshine reaches the ground with little interruption. Here flourishes a scattered, tufted growth of golden applopappus, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041463 | linosyris, bahia, wyetheia, arnica, artemisia, and similar plants; with manzanita, cherry, plum, and thorn in ragged patches on the cooler hill-slopes. At the extremities of the Great Central Plain, the Sierra and Coast Ranges curve around and lock together in a labyrinth of mountains and valleys, throughout which their floras are mingled, making at the north, with its temperate climate | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041464 | and copious rainfall, a perfect paradise for bees, though, strange to say, scarcely a single regular bee-ranch has yet been established in it. Of all the upper flower fields of the Sierra, Shasta is the most honeyful, and may yet surpass in fame the celebrated honey hills of Hybla and hearthy Hymettus. Regarding this noble mountain from a bee point | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041465 | of view, encircled by its many climates, and sweeping aloft from the torrid plain into the frosty azure, we find the first feet from the summit generally snow-clad, and therefore about as honeyless as the sea. The base of this arctic region is girdled by a belt of crumbling lava measuring about feet in vertical breadth, and is mostly free | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041466 | from snow in summer. Beautiful lichens enliven the faces of the cliffs with their bright colors, and in some of the warmer nooks there are a few tufts of alpine daisies, wall-flowers and pentstemons; but, notwithstanding these bloom freely in the late summer, the zone as a whole is almost as honeyless as the icy summit, and its lower edge | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041467 | may be taken as the honey-line. Immediately below this comes the forest zone, covered with a rich growth of conifers, chiefly Silver Firs, rich in pollen and honey-dew, and diversified with countless garden openings, many of them less than a hundred yards across. Next, in orderly succession, comes the great bee zone. Its area far surpasses that of the icy | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041468 | summit and both the other zones combined, for it goes sweeping majestically around the entire mountain, with a breadth of six or seven miles and a circumference of nearly a hundred miles. Shasta, as we have already seen, is a fire-mountain created by a succession of eruptions of ashes and molten lava, which, flowing over the lips of its several | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041469 | craters, grew outward and upward like the trunk of a knotty exogenous tree. Then followed a strange contrast. The glacial winter came on, loading the cooling mountain with ice, which flowed slowly outward in every direction, radiating from the summit in the form of one vast conical glaciera down-crawling mantle of ice upon a fountain of smoldering fire, crushing and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041470 | grinding for centuries its brown, flinty lavas with incessant activity, and thus degrading and remodeling the entire mountain. When, at length, the glacial period began to draw near its close, the ice-mantle was gradually melted off around the bottom, and, in receding and breaking into its present fragmentary condition, irregular rings and heaps of moraine matter were stored upon its | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041471 | flanks. The glacial erosion of most of the Shasta lavas produces detritus, composed of rough, sub-angular boulders of moderate size and of porous gravel and sand, which yields freely to the transporting power of running water. Magnificent floods from the ample fountains of ice and snow working with sublime energy upon this prepared glacial detritus, sorted it out and carried | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041472 | down immense quantities from the higher slopes, and reformed it in smooth, delta-like beds around the base; and it is these flood-beds joined together that now form the main honey-zone of the old volcano. Thus, by forces seemingly antagonistic and destructive, has Mother Nature accomplished her beneficent designsnow a flood of fire, now a flood of ice, now a flood | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041473 | of water; and at length an outburst of organic life, a milky way of snowy petals and wings, girdling the rugged mountain like a cloud, as if the vivifying sunbeams beating against its sides had broken into a foam of plant-bloom and bees, as sea-waves break and bloom on a rock shore. In this flowery wilderness the bees rove and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041474 | revel, rejoicing in the bounty of the sun, clambering eagerly through bramble and hucklebloom, ringing the myriad bells of the manzanita, now humming aloft among polleny willows and firs, now down on the ashy ground among gilias and buttercups, and anon plunging deep into snowy banks of cherry and buckthorn. They consider the lilies and roll into them, and, like | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041475 | lilies, they toil not, for they are impelled by sun-power, as water-wheels by water-power; and when the one has plenty of high-pressure water, the other plenty of sunshine, they hum and quiver alike. Sauntering in the Shasta bee-lands in the sun-days of summer, one may readily infer the time of day from the comparative energy of bee-movements alonedrowsy and moderate | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041476 | in the cool of the morning, increasing in energy with the ascending sun, and, at high noon, thrilling and quivering in wild ecstasy, then gradually declining again to the stillness of night. In my excursions among the glaciers I occasionally meet bees that are hungry, like mountaineers who venture too far and remain too long above the bread-line; then they | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041477 | droop and wither like autumn leaves. The Shasta bees are perhaps better fed than any others in the Sierra. Their field-work is one perpetual feast; but, however exhilarating the sunshine or bountiful the supply of flowers, they are always dainty feeders. Humming-moths and hummingbirds seldom set foot upon a flower, but poise on the wing in front of it, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041478 | reach forward as if they were sucking through straws. But bees, though, as dainty as they, hug their favorite flowers with profound cordiality, and push their blunt, polleny faces against them, like babies on their mothers bosom. And fondly, too, with eternal love, does Mother Nature clasp her small bee-babies, and suckle them, multitudes at once, on her warm Shasta | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041479 | breast. Besides the common honey-bee there are many other species herefine mossy, burly fellows, who were nourished on the mountains thousands of sunny seasons before the advent of the domestic species. Among these are the bumblebees, mason-bees, carpenter-bees, and leaf-cutters. Butterflies, too, and moths of every size and pattern; some broad-winged like bats, flapping slowly, and sailing in easy curves; | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041480 | others like small, flying violets, shaking about loosely in short, crooked flights close to the flowers, feasting luxuriously night and day. Great numbers of deer also delight to dwell in the brushy portions of the bee-pastures. Bears, too, roam the sweet wilderness, their blunt, shaggy forms harmonizing well with the trees and tangled bushes, and with the bees, also, notwithstanding | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041481 | the disparity in size. They are fond of all good things, and enjoy them to the utmost, with but little troublesome discriminationflowers and leaves as well as berries, and the bees themselves as well as their honey. Though the California bears have as yet had but little experience with honeybees, they often succeed in reaching their bountiful stores, and it | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041482 | seems doubtful whether bees themselves enjoy honey with so great a relish. By means of their powerful teeth and claws they can gnaw and tear open almost any hive conveniently accessible. Most honey-bees, however, in search of a home are wise enough to make choice of a hollow in a living tree, a considerable distance above the ground, when such | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041483 | places are to be had; then they are pretty secure, for though the smaller black and brown bears climb well, they are unable to break into strong hives while compelled to exert themselves to keep from falling, and at the same time to endure the stings of the fighting bees without having their paws free to rub them off. But | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041484 | woe to the black bumblebees discovered in their mossy nests in the ground! With a few strokes of their huge paws the bears uncover the entire establishment, and, before time is given for a general buzz, bees old and young, larvae, honey, stings, nest, and all are taken in one ravishing mouthful. Not the least influential of the agents concerned | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041485 | in the superior sweetness of the Shasta flora are its stormsstorms I mean that are strictly local, bred and born on the mountain. The magical rapidity with which they are grown on the mountain-top, and bestow their charity in rain and snow, never fails to astonish the inexperienced lowlander. Often in calm, glowing days, while the bees are still on | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041486 | the wing, a storm-cloud may be seen far above in the pure ether, swelling its pearl bosses, and growing silently, like a plant. Presently a clear, ringing discharge of thunder is heard, followed by a rush of wind that comes sounding over the bending woods like the roar of the ocean, mingling raindrops, snow-flowers, honey-flowers, and bees in wild storm | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041487 | harmony. Still more impressive are the warm, reviving days of spring in the mountain pastures. The blood of the plants throbbing beneath the life-giving sunshine seems to be heard and felt. Plant growth goes on before our eyes, and every tree in the woods, and every bush and flower is seen as a hive of restless industry. The deeps of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041488 | the sky are mottled with singing wings of every tone and color; clouds of brilliant chrysididae dancing and swirling in exquisite rhythm, golden-barred vespidae, dragon-flies, butterflies, grating cicadas, and jolly, rattling grasshoppers, fairly enameling the light. [Illustration: IN THE SAN GABRIEL VALLEY.WHITE SAGE.] On bright, crisp mornings a striking optical effect may frequently be observed from the shadows of the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041489 | higher mountains while the sunbeams are pouring past overhead. Then every insect, no matter what may be its own proper color, burns white in the light. Gauzy-winged hymenoptera, moths, jet-black beetles, all are transfigured alike in pure, spiritual white, like snowflakes. In Southern California, where bee-culture has had so much skilful attention of late years, the pasturage is not more | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041490 | abundant, or more advantageously varied as to the number of its honey-plants and their distribution over mountain and plain, than that of many other portions of the State where the industrial currents flow in other channels. The famous White Sage (_Audibertia_), belonging to the mint family, flourishes here in all its glory, blooming in May, and yielding great quantities of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041491 | clear, pale honey, which is greatly prized in every market it has yet reached. This species grows chiefly in the valleys and low hills. The Black Sage on the mountains is part of a dense, thorny chaparral, which is composed chiefly of adenostoma, ceanothus, manzanita, and cherrynot differing greatly from that of the southern portion of the Sierra, but more | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041492 | dense and continuous, and taller, and remaining longer in bloom. Stream-side gardens, so charming a feature of both the Sierra and Coast Mountains, are less numerous in Southern California, but they are exceedingly rich in honey-flowers, wherever found,melilotus, columbine, collinsia, verbena, zauschneria, wild rose, honeysuckle, philadelphus, and lilies rising from the warm, moist dells in a very storm of exuberance. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041493 | Wild buckwheat of many species is developed in abundance over the dry, sandy valleys and lower slopes of the mountains, toward the end of summer, and is, at this time, the main dependence of the bees, reinforced here and there by orange groves, alfalfa fields, and small home gardens. The main honey months, in ordinary seasons, are April, May, June, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041494 | July, and August; while the other months are usually flowery enough to yield sufficient for the bees. According to Mr. J.T. Gordon, President of the Los Angeles County Bee-keepers Association, the first bees introduced into the county were a single hive, which cost $ in San Francisco, and arrived in September, .[] In April, of the following year, this hive | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041495 | sent out two swarms, which were sold for $ each. From this small beginning the bees gradually multiplied to about swarms in the year . In it was estimated that there were between , and , hives in the county, producing an annual yield of about pounds to the hivein some exceptional cases, a much greater yield. In San Diego | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041496 | County, at the beginning of the season of , there were about , hives, and the shipments from the one port of San Diego for the same year, from July to November , were barrels, , cases, and nearly tons. The largest bee-ranches have about a thousand hives, and are carefully and skilfully managed, every scientific appliance of merit being | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041497 | brought into use. There are few bee-keepers, however, who own half as many as this, or who give their undivided attention to the business. Orange culture, at present, is heavily overshadowing every other business. A good many of the so-called bee-ranches of Los Angeles and San Diego counties are still of the rudest pioneer kind imaginable. A man unsuccessful in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041498 | everything else hears the interesting story of the profits and comforts of bee-keeping, and concludes to try it; he buys a few colonies, or gets them, from some overstocked ranch on shares, takes them back to the foot of some caon, where the pasturage is fresh, squats on the land, with, or without, the permission of the owner, sets up | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000041499 | his hives, makes a box-cabin for himself, scarcely bigger than a bee-hive, and awaits his fortune. Bees suffer sadly from famine during the dry years which occasionally occur in the southern and middle portions of the State. If the rainfall amounts only to three or four inches, instead of from twelve to twenty, as in ordinary seasons, then sheep and | 60 | gutenberg |
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