Honey was the earliest cash crop of Fallbrook’s first settlers. In the 1870s, just as the Fallbrook area was being settled, beekeeping was spreading throughout San Diego County [1] and the cost of buying a modern bee box with a colony was affordable to a small farmer.
Honey bees were kept as essential livestock by many farmers. In addition to their pollination work, apiaries provided a source of income through the production of honey, and beeswax for candles. Thousands of bees gathered the bulk of their honey from the local bee pasture of chaparral, sage brush and other shrubs.
An advantage of growing honey was that it did not spoil. It could be stored for a time and later shipped to market without spoiling.
Vital Reche and his family settled on 160 acres of creek bottom adjacent to Rancho Monserate in 1869 to begin farming and raising bees. Reche’s apiary on his Fall Brook Ranch grew to 130 colonies of bees. He stored honey in 5-gallon tin cans and quart jars.
Reche built a log cabin store on his homestead to sell staples and honey, but more importantly he bought honey from his neighbors. Buying their honey encouraged nearby settlers to grow even more. Reche’s neighbors, the Fox/White, Gird and Hindorff families of Live Oak canyon also established large apiaries. [2]
Beekeeping was profitable enough that sheep were limited to protect the brush the bees worked on.
It was a common sight to see Vital Reche arriving in San Diego with his four-horse team pulling a wagon loaded with “Fall Brook Honey”. [3] Reche knew that ship captains who had recently unloaded cargo in San Diego were now looking for California products to refill their empty ship holds, before they sailed back to the East Coast. In this way, Fall Brook Honey became known as far away as New York. The cash or credits he earned from the honey, enabled Reche could load carry back inventory to sell at his Fall Brook store.
Tom Frew,
FHS Historian
Citations:
1) San Diego Historical Society Journal, Fall 1969. John S. Harbison: Pioneer San Diego
Beekeeper, by Lee Watkins.
2) Don Rivers, Remembering the Past, by Don Rivers, Fallbrook Historical Society.
3) Fallbrook In Review, Vol 1. Early History of the Fallbrook Area, by Margaret Ray and Lois
Cunningham.
