. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. 158 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL May MOVING BEES A LONG DISTANCE How 600 Colonies of Bees Were Moved From Kansas to Cali- fornia in a Freight Car By Roy Bunger Following the failure of our honey crop last year, we were more than ever anxious to move to California, as many another beekeeper has done. We began moving our yards (nearly 600 colonies in 10-frame hives) near town about October 1, and had only about 100 colonies placed there when the inspector, Mr. Whitehead, arrived to begin inspecting. This work took up 10 days of our time We finished hauling all
. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. 158 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL May MOVING BEES A LONG DISTANCE How 600 Colonies of Bees Were Moved From Kansas to Cali- fornia in a Freight Car By Roy Bunger Following the failure of our honey crop last year, we were more than ever anxious to move to California, as many another beekeeper has done. We began moving our yards (nearly 600 colonies in 10-frame hives) near town about October 1, and had only about 100 colonies placed there when the inspector, Mr. Whitehead, arrived to begin inspecting. This work took up 10 days of our time We finished hauling all healthy colonies near town, united about 40 of the weaker ones, finished up the usual routine of preparing them for winter, about November 1. On account of the high freight rate on an automobile we decided to drive the one through that we used in this work, a Dodge Commercial, which weighs 2,600 pounds. The freight rate demanded on this car was $7 per 100 pounds, so it would have cost about $182, but even at this rate I am not sure but it would have been cheaper by freight than by driv- ing it through as we did. We left our old home at Eskridge, Kans., November 3, and drove over- land, arriving in San Bernardino about November 18. We came over the National Trail, which was very rough. After visiting friends and relatives, and attending the short course for beekeepers, I found Mr. B. F. Stanley, County Inspector of San Bernardino County, who acompanied me to help find a location. To eastern beekeep- ers this might seem like an easy mat- ter, but in a county of over 50,000 colonies it is not so easy as it seems. I left San Bernardino December 12 and arrived at Eskridge three days later, where work of making moving screens was iiiiiiu-dialfly begun. The thermometer was hanging around zero at this time, hives were covered with layers of ice, which was quite a change from California orange blos- soms. It was necessary to get part of the wooden material for these frames from a factor
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectbees, bookyear1861
