Bee-Pastures of California In Two Parts.:-II\u27\u27

THE BEE-PASTURES OF CALIFORNIA. IN TWO PARTS: II. IN THE SAN GABRIEL VALLEY.—WHITE SAGE. Regarding Mount Shasta comprehensively torrid plain deep into the. cold azure, we find from a bee point of view, encircled by its the first five thousand feet from the. summit many climates, and sweeping aloft from the pretty generally snow-clad, and therefore are about as flowerless 3tA honeyless as the sea. The Jc of this arctic region is I jpniled by a belt of naked la\u27va swastiring about a thousand feet 9 vertical breadth. Beautiful Sdiens enliven the faces of the efiffs with their bright colors, vtA in some of the warmer aooks of the rocks there are a fc-w tufts of alpine daisies, wall- Sowers, and pentstemons; but, notwithstanding these bloom freely in the late summer, the zone as a whole is jlmost as honeyless as the icy summit, and its lower edge suy be taken as the superior limit of the honey-line. Immediately below this comes the forest zone, covered *ith a rich growth of conifers, chiefly silver firs, rich in Jwllen and honey-dew, and diversified with countless gar- ji openings, many of them less than a hundred yards *ss. Next, in orderly succession, comes the grand bee- ine.. Its area far surpasses that of the icy summit and w the other zones combined, for it goes sweeping jesttcally around the entire mountain, with a breadth w six or\u27seven miles and a circumference of nearly a hundred miles. .Shasta, as we have already suggested, is a fire-mount- airi, created by a succession of eruptions of ashes and Molten lava, which, flowing over the lips of its several craters, grew outward and upward like the trunk of a knotty exogenous tree. Then followed a strange contrast. e glacial winter came on, loading the cooling mountain *Mh ice which flowed slowly outward in every direction, radiating from the summit in the form of One vast conical l BEE-RANCH ON A SPUR OF THE SAN GABRIEL RANGE. CARDINAL FLOWER. WILD BUCKWHEAT.—A BEE-RANCH IN THE WILDERNESS. glacier—-a down-crawling mantle of ice upon a fountain of smoldering fire, crushing and 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 flanks. The glacial erosion of most of the Shasta lavas produced a detritus, composed of rough, sub- angular bowlders of moderate size and porous gravel and sand, which yields freely to the transporting power of running water. Under Nature\u27s management, the next marked geological event made to take place in the history of Mount Shasta was a water-flood of extraordinary magnitude, which acted with sublime energy upon this prepared glacial detritus, sorting it out and carrying down immense quantities from the higher slopes, and redepositing it in smooth, delta-like beds around the base; and it is these flood-beds of moraine soil, thus suddenly and simultaneously laid down and joined edge to edge, that now form the main honey-zone. Thus, by forces seemingly antagonistic and destructive, has Mother Nature accomplished her beneficent designs—now a flood of fire, now a flood of ice, now a flood of water; and then 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. In this lovely wilderness the bees rove and revel, rejoicing in the bounty of the sun, clambering eagerly through bramble and hucklebloom, stirring the clustered 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 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 bee-lands in the sun-days of summer, one may readily infer the time of day from the comparative energy of bee-movements alone—drowsy ana moderate 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 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 humming-birds seldom set foot upon a flower, but poise on the wing in front of it, and 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 mother\u27s 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 breast. Besides the common ,,-. honey-bee - there are many other species here —fine mossy, burly, fellows, who were nourished on the mountains thousands of sunny seasons before the advent of the domestic species. Among these are the bumble-bees, mason-bees, carpenter- bees, and leaf - cut- ters. But- * terflies, too, and moths of every size and pattern,—some broad-winged like bats, flapping slowly, and sailing in easy curves ; , others like small, flying violets, ing 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 wildness, their blunt, shaggy forms harmonizing well with\u27 the trees and tangled bushes, and with the bees, also, notwithstanding the disparity in size. They are fond of all good things, and enjoy them to the utmost, with but little troublesome discrimination—flowers 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 honey-bees, they often succeed in reaching their bountiful stores, and it 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 it is possible; 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 woe to the black bumble-bees discovered in their mossy mouse-nests in the ground! 1 he bears with a few strokes of their huge paws lay the entire establishment bare, and, before time is given for a general buzz, bees old and young, larvse, honey, stings, nest, and shak A BEE-PASTURK ON THE MORAINE DESERT. SPANISH BAYONET. Mi all are taken in in one ravishing mouthful. Not the least influential of the agents concerned in the superior sweetness of the Shasta flora are its storms— Storms I mean that are strictly local, bred and born on the mountain, and belonging to it as completely as its vegetation. The magical rapidity with which they grow on the mountain Still more impressive are the warm, revivi, days of spring in the mountain pastures, Th blood of the plants throbbing beneath i\ life-giving sunshine seems to be heard ami felt. Plant growth goes on before our eyes i and every tree in die woods, and buS I and flower is seen as a hive of restlo* 1 industry. The deeps of the sit I are mottled with singing wmA i of every tone and color; cloutS5 of brilliant chrysididae dancing an41 swirling in exquisite rhythm, golder,. I barred vespidae, dragon-flies, butterflies,! grating cicadas, and jolly, rattling graI i hoppers, fairly enameling the light. On bright, crisp mornings a striking t* tical effect may frequently be observed A from the shadows of the highs* f mountains while the sunbeams ate ; pouring past overhead. Then evert insect, no matter what may be it I own proper color, bums white in J the light. Gauzy-winged hymen-1 optera, moths, jet-black lux. | ties, all are transfigured alike in j pure, spiritual white, like sno*-| flakes. I In southern California, where I bee-culture has had so much i k skillful attention of late years, 1 the pasturage is not more j abundant, or more advantageously I varied as to the number of it* 1 honey plants and their distri-i bution over mountain andl plain, than that of mam | other portions of the Sutti where the industrial currents 1 flow in other channels. The ti-| mous white sage (Audibcrtia),\n longing to the mint family, flourishtfj ..„j in all its glory, blooming in M.iy,s and yielding great quantities of clear, palel honey, which is greatly prized in every market | it has yet reached. This species grows chieflyI in the valleys and low hills. The black sagc| on the mountains is part of a dense, thorny! chaparral, which is composed chiefly of aa-J enostoma, ceanothus, manzanita, and cherry—| top, and bestow their charity in rain and snow, not differing greatly from that of the southerri| never fails to astonish the inexperienced low- portion of the sierra, but more dense and con- j lander. Often in calm, glowing days, while tinuous, and taller, and remaining longer fflj the bees are still on the wing, a storm-cloud bloom. Stream-side gardens, so charming ai may be seen far above in the pure ether, swell- feature of both the sierra and coast mount-i ing its pearl bosses, and growing silently like ains, are less numerous but exceedingly rich -. a plant. Presently a clear, ringing discharge in honey flowers wherever found: melilotuM of thunder is heard, then a rush of wind, columbine, collinsia, verbena, zauschneria.vikr sounding over the bending woods like the rose, honeysuckle, philadelphus, and hhes ns-, roar of the ocean, and mingling rain, snow- ing from the warm, moist dells in a very storm flowers, honey-flowers, and bees in wild of exuberance. Wild buckwheat of many spe-; storm harmony. cies is developed in great abundance over the dry sandy valleys and lower slopes of the seasons, then sheep and cattle die in thousands, 1 jnountains toward the end of summer, and is ?8t this time the main dependence of the bees, reenforced here and there by orange groves, alfalfa fields, and small home gardens. -The main honey months in ordinary seasons are April, May, June, July, and August; while the other months are usually flowery enough to yield sufficient for the bees. H According to Mr. J. T. Gordon, president of the Los Angeles County Bee-keepers\u27 Asso- • aaobn, the first bees introduced into the and so do these small winged cattle, unless they are carefully fed, or removed to other pastures. The year 1877 will long be remembered as exceptionally rainless and distressing. Scarce a flower bloomed on the dry valleys away from the stream-sides, and not a single grain-field depending upon rain was reaped. The seed only sprouted, and came up a little way, and withered; and horses, cattle, and sheep grew thinner day by day, nibbling at bushes and weeds along the shallowing edges county were a single hive, which cost $150 of streams, many of which were dried\u27.up in San Francisco and arrived in September, altogether for the first time since the settle- 16*54.* In April of the following year this ment of the country. ! \u27.:\u27. Itive sent out two swarms, which were sold In the course of a trip made during the for one hundred dollars each. From this summer of that year through Monterey, San small beginning the bees gradually multiplied Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los {0 about three thousand swarms in the year Angeles counties, the deplorable effects of 1873. In 1876, it was estimated that there the drought were everywhere visible—leafless were between fifteen and twenty thousand .hives in the county, producing ah annual yield af about one hundred pounds to the hive—in liotne exceptional cases a much greater yield. . i In; San Diego County, at the beginning of the season of 1878, there were about 24,000 Jiives, and the shipments from the one port of San Diego for the same year, from July 17th jn November 10th, were 1,071 barrels, 15,544 ees suffer sadly from famine during the dry in league against one squirrel, driving the ?rs which occasionally occur in the southern poor fellow out of an oak that they claimed. St \u27ddle portions of the State. If the rain- He dodged round the knotty trunk from side SB mounts only to three or four inches, in- to side, as nimbly as he could in his famished fad of from twelve to twenty as in ordinary condition, only to find a sharp bill everywhere. But the fate of the bees that year seemed the Ha X ves of Ita,ian °ees were introduced into U5* County in 1855, and in 1876 they had Sferfr\u27v ,five hundred. The marked superiority EfekMi them over the common species is now E55??E considerable attention. *\u3c- XXIV.-34, saddest of all. From one-half to three-fourths of them died, in different portions of Los Angeles and San Diego counties, of sheer starvation—not less than eighteen thousand colonies in these two counties alone, while in the adjacent counties the death-rate was hardly less. Even the colonies nearest to the mountains suffered more or less this year, for the smaller vegetation on the foot-hills was affected by the drought almost as severely as that of the valleys and plains, and even the hardy, deep-rooted chaparral, the surest dependence of the bees, bloomed sparingly, while much of it was beyond reach. All could have been saved, however, by promptly supplying them with food when their own stores began to fail, and before they became enfeebled and discouraged, or by cutting roads back into the mountains, and taking them into the heart of the flowery chaparral. The Santa Lucia, San Rafael, San Gabriel, San Jacinto, and San Bernardino ranges are almost untouched as yet save by the wild bees. Some idea of their resources, and of the advantages and disadvantages they offer to bee-keepers, may be formed from an excursion that I made into the San Gabriel range about the beginning of August of the dry year. This range, containing most of the characteristic features of the other ranges just mentioned, overlooks the Los Angeles vineyards and orange groves from the north, and is more rigidly inaccessible in the ordinary meaning of the word than any other that I ever attempted to penetrate. The slopes are exceptionally steep and insecure to the foot, and they are covered with thorny bushes from five to ten feet high. With the exception of little spots not visible in general views, the entire surface is covered with them, massed in close hedge growth, sweeping gracefully down into every gorge and hollow, and swelling over every ridge and summit in shaggy, ungovernable exuberance, offering more honey to the acre for half the year than the most crowded clover-field in bloom time. But when beheld from the open San Gabriel valley, beaten with dry sunshine, all that was seen of the range seemed to wear a forbidding aspect. From base to summit all seemed gray barren, silent, its glorious chaparral appear ing like dry moss creeping over its dull, wrinkled ridges and hollows. Setting out from Pasadena, a hopeful little colony of orange groves about six miles from the city of Los Angeles, I reached the foot of the range about sundown; and being weary and heated with my walk across the shadeless plain, concluded to camp for the night. After resting a few moments I began to look about among the flood-bowlders of the creek for a smooth camp-ground, when I came upon a strange, dark-looking man who had been chopping cord-wood. He seemed greatly surprised at seeing me, so I sat down with him on the live-oak log he had been cutting, and made haste to give a reason for my appearance in his solitude, explaining that I was anxious to find out something about the mountains and meant to make mv way up Eaton Creek next morning. Then.he\u27 \u27•\u27 kindly invited me to camp with him, and led me to his little cabin, situated at the.foot of the first of the mountain slopes, where a small spring oozes out of a bank overgrown with wild rose-bushes. After supper, when the daylight was gone, he explained that,he was - out of candles, so we sat in the dark, while , % he gave me a sketch of his life in a mixture i of Spanish and English. He was bom in . Mexico, his father Irish, his mother Spanish. - He had\u27been a miner, rancher, prospecter \u27•- hunter, etc., rambling always, and wearing his life away in mere waste, but now he.was. \u27 going to settle down. His past life, hesaid,;;\u27;; was of no account but the future\u27.} was ,v\u27-i. promising. He was going to make money ; and marry a Spanish woman. People -mine here for water as for gold. He had been, run- ning a tunnel into a spur of the mountain , back of his cabin. My prospect is good he said, and if I chance to strike a good strong \u27: flow, I\u27ll soon be worth five or ten thousand, dollars. For that flat out there referring to -,.. a small, irregular patch of bowldery detritus,;: two or three acres in size, that had been deposited by Eaton Creek during some flood .- season,— that flat is large enough for a nice orange grove, and the bank behind the cabin will do for a vineyard, and after watering my\u27,:;\u27 own trees and vines I will have some left to \u3c sell to my neighbors below me down the valley. , i And then he continued, I can keep bees-:.\u27;. and make money that way, too, for the mount-/,\u27 ains above here are just full of honey in the summer time, and one of my neighbors down. • here says that he will let me have a whole lot. of hives on shares to start with. You see I\u27ve\u3e .; a good thing; I\u27m all right now. AIL this _, prospective affluence in the sunken, bowlder- 9 choked flood-bed of a mountain stream! \u27; Leaving the bees out of the count, most fortune-seekers would as soon think of • settling on the summit of Mount Shasta. .-\u27;:\u27-•;• f.&\u27\u27; About half an hour\u27s walk above the cabSH is The Fall famous throughout the valley settlements as the finest yet discovered in rise : range. It is a charming little thing, with a. V-; low, sweet voice, singing like a bird asit. pours from a notch in a short ledge some .\u27 thirty-five or forty feet into a round-mirror - pool. The face of the cliff back of it and on\u3e.; both sides is smoothly covered and embossed v* with mosses, against which the white waUaB shines out in showy relief, like a silver insrru-\u3e/ ment in a velvet case. Hither come the San Gabriel lads and lasses to gather ferns and bubble away their hot holidays in the cool feer dad to escape from their commonplace in \u27gardens and orange groves. The deli- i maiden-hair grows on fissured rocks jhin reach of the spray, while broad-leaved yes and sycamores cast soft, mellow shade fr a rich profusion of bee-flowers growing W bowlders in front of the pool—the b the flowers, the bees, the ferny rocks and fo shade forming a charming little poem fetidness, the last of a series extending Lj the flowery slopes of San Antonio pu h the rugged, foam-beaten bosses of the jjin Eaton canon. from the base of the fall I followed the fee that forms the western rim of the Eaton Sn to the summit of one of the principal jls, which is about five thousand feet above [level. Then, turning eastward, I crossed fmiddle of the basin, forcing a way over its |tv subordinate ridges and across its east- frim, having to contend almost everywhere iJt the floweriest and most impenetrable \u3ewth of honey bushes I had ever encoun- td since first my mountaineering began. 1st of the Shasta chaparral is leafy nearly jtjie ground; here the main stems are naked Ithree or four feet, and interspiked with |d twigs, forming a stiff chevaux de /rise pugh which even the bears make their way jh difficulty. I was compelled to creep for its on all-fours, and in following the bear- lb often found tufts of hair on the bushes ferre they had forced themselves through. jfor a hundred feet or so above the fall the WH was made possible only by tough pons of club-moss that clung to the rock. jbve this the ridge weathers away to a ID knife-blade for a few hundred yards, and pfc to the summit of the range it carries pstly mane of chaparral. Here and there all openings occur on rocky places, com- inding fine views across the cultivated val- |lo the ocean. These I found by the tracks K favorite outlooks and resting-places for } wild animals—bears, wolves, foxes, wild- S, etc.—which abound here, and would f to be taken into account in the establish- at of bee-ranches. In the deepest thickets pnd wood-rat villages---groups of huts | to six feet high, built of sticks and leaves f\u27gh, tapering piles, like musk-rat cabins. Noticed a good many bees, too, most of Sn wdd. The tame honey-bees seemed $wd and wing-weary, as if they had come the way up from the flowerless plain. met reaching the summit I had time to *f only