248 EXPERIMENTAL FARMS. 



64 VICTORIA, A. 1901 



the most of the old honey used up and mere space filled with brood : at 

 the same time they would have had an increase in the number of the 

 bees and would have secured a much larger yield of honey ; there would 

 have been also no dead brood. The very wet weather that set in all over the 

 province in the last half of May and first week in June, was very hard on the consti- 

 tution of thousands of colonies, because it prevented any honey gathering during that 

 long rainy time, and after the bees used up the unsealed honey (a thing they always 

 use first) they did not uncap ihe old sealed stores fast enough to keep pace with the 

 large quantity of larvae ihat required feeding ; the result was a lot of starved brood, 

 weak colonies and a small honey crop in many places. During the three weeks of 

 wet weather I kept my colonies well supplied with unsealed honey by uncapping the 

 sealed stores from time to time until all was used up, and after that I fed the bees 

 until they commenced to gather honey. When tha honey season opened, the combs 

 in every brood-chamber were full of brood, and a large number of bees were hanging 

 out on the front of every hive. I then put supers on, and from ninety colonies in that 

 off season I took over 10,000 pounds of clover honey and left abundance for the bees 

 to winter on. Last season I kept my colonies supplied with unsealed honey between 

 fruit bloom and clover bloom, and when I finished extracting the balance of my crop 

 in the fall I found I had taken over J 1.000 pounds of clover honey from 100 colonies, 

 and left plenty to winter the bees. You say that you tried the starvation plan and 

 the dead brood showed up again ; also that you starved several of lhem twice. I am 

 ceitain that dead brood (starved brood) would not have shown up again after you put 

 the bees on founiation, if you had fed the bees freely until they began to gather 

 honey. Vou also say thai^^ many a score of white comb you melted. What a loss ! These 

 beautiful combs should not have been melted. With different management you could 

 have made $250 or more, and saved ail the combs and yourself from a v/orld of worry.' 

 — J. McEvoY. 



^A^EEDS. 



SPRAYING FOR DESTRUCTION OF Ml'STARD. 



In my last report an account was given by Mr. J'rank T. Shutt, M.A., F.R.S.C, 

 Chemist to the Dominion Experimental Farms, of some experiments carried out by him, 

 with the assistance of the Horticulturist of the Central Experimental Farm, to tost 

 the efficacy of the French method of eradicating Wild Mustard by spraying infested 

 growing crops with solutions of copper .mlphato. The conclusion arrived at from 

 these experiments was, that a 2 per cent solution of copper sulphate, applied at the rate 

 of 50 gallons to the acre, when the mustard plants were young, was the most effective, 

 safest (as regards the grain crops) and most economical to use. The average cost of 

 this application would be $1 per acre. 



During the past summer, the Horticulturist, having men and horse-power at his 

 disposal, again tested this remedy, and the results were again successful, although 

 the experiment was carried out rather late in the season, and under certain other dis- 

 advantages as to the nature of the crop infested and the weather which prevailed at 

 the time. 



Mr. Shutt has drawn my attention to an important article on the subject, entitled 

 ' The destruction of Charlock,' by Dr. J. Augustus Voelcker, in the Journal of the 

 Royal Agricultural Society of England, vol. X, pt. 4, pp. 767-775, which, on the whole, 

 confirms Mr. Shutt's conclusions and gives much valuable information on the subject. 

 One quotation from a report made by Mr. Wm. Carruthers. the Consulting Botanist of 



