FIFTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VIII. 541 



this was not the case all through the Province. In Western Quebec, the 

 season is longer, there are two crops of honey, owing to the warmer cli- 

 mate, and the Italian bees thrive as they do in the United States. The 

 same may be said of the Province of Ontario, where the climate is similar 

 to that of Southern Michigan. They have also ascertained that the Italian 

 bees overcome European Foul Brood much more readily than the common 

 black bees. I heard numerous statements of having done away with this 

 disease by the introduction of Italian queens. 



As a matter of course, they winter their bees almost invariably in the 

 cellar. The few cellars which I saw were very shallow and I remarked 

 that they would be subject to great changes of temperature and would be 

 too cold in winter. But when they told me that the snow usually covers the 

 ground to the depth of five or six feet, I could understand that the changes 

 of the outside temperature would have but little effect on the temperature 

 of the cellars. One of the apiarists told me that he had kept his bees 186 

 days in the cellar one winter and that they came out in good shape in the 

 spring. He stated that the temperature of his cellar kept regularly at 49 

 degrees, but when I visited it, the thermometer registered only 45 de- 

 grees which is a satisfactory degree for the wintering of bees. They pile 

 the hives in the cellar four or five tiers high, much as we do. Some had 

 their bees already in the cellar, but most of them were just preparing to 

 take them in. They take them out at the blooming of the soft maple in 

 spring. 



In Western Quebec, they harvest large crops of honey. One record given 

 at the meeting, from a man of St Hyacinthe, which was vouched for by 

 several neighbors of his, also present, was 6221 pounds from 15 colonies, 

 or about 415 pounds per colony of extracted honey. He had 13 frames 

 Langstroth hives, with supers of the same dimension. In that locality, 

 the bees get their first crop from white and sweet clover and their second 

 crop from buckwheat. According to the reports in the hands of the sec- 

 retary, Mr. Comire, the average of the crop for the entire Province was 

 about 70 pounds per colony. 



As I am a firmly convinced supporter of large hives, I was glad to see 

 that, even in that country with short summers, the best crops were har- 

 vested from the large hives. 



The beekeepers of the western part of Quebec are practically a unit in 

 praising the Italian bees. The beekeepers are encouraged to buy Italian 

 queens, for the Province has appropriated the sum of $500 to pay half of 

 the cost for the apiarists who wish to try them. The only difficulty is 

 that this amount is insufficient to supply as many queens as have been 

 desired. The Province has already passed a law forbidding the use of 

 poisonous sprays on fruit bloom. They have also passed a law compelling 

 the beekeeper who keeps his apiary within .50 feet of neighbors' home^ 

 to build an eight foot tight board fence between the hives and the neighbor's 

 yard. They say that this is an advantage because when they have com- 

 plied with the law, if anything happens, they cannot be held responsible. 



The homes are usually very close together and the villages are strung 

 along a roadside. The lands were granted in long narrow strips, only 

 180 feet wide, which extend back several miles. This was for the better 

 protection, in the old days, against the Indians, who w^ere not destroyed 



