e. 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, 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 $150 in San Francisco, and arrived in
September, 1854.[1] In April, of the following year, this hive sent out
two swarms, which were sold for $100 each. From this small beginning the
bees gradually multiplied to about 3000 swarms in the year 1873. In 1876
it was estimated that there were between 15,000 and 20,000 hives in the
county, producing an annual yield of about 100 pounds to the hive--in
some exceptional cases, a much greater yield.

In San Diego County, at the beginning of the season of 1878, there were
about 24,000 hives, and the shipments from the one port of San Diego for
the same year, from July 17 to November 10, were 1071 barrels, 15,544
cases, and nearly 90 tons. The largest bee-ranches have about a thousand
hives, and are carefully and skilfully managed, every scientific
appliance of merit being 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 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 canon, where the pasturage is fresh,
squats on the land, with, or without, the permission of the owner, sets
up 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 twe