202 



July, I'pri. 



American Tiee Journalj 



he says : " A woman can run an api- 

 ary of 2o hives without assistance, ex- 

 cept when putting them into the cellar 

 for wintering, if run for comb honey." 

 That hints that 2-J run for extracted 

 honey would be beyond her. What 

 zk-o/iM he think of Miss Mathilde Cand- 

 ler who counts her colonies by the 

 hundred, doing nearly all the work 

 alone ? 



Swarm management is somewhat 

 original. When the swarm issues, set 

 the old hive at least 30 feet away, and 

 put the swarm in its place. In the eve- 

 ning of the same day return the old 

 hive to the old stand, and set the swarm 

 on a new stand some distance away, 

 with a marker in front. .It t/u's /ime tin- 

 old itii'e has all the tmrsc-bevs and a 

 neiu queen. Now is it locality or man- 

 agement that allows no nurse-bees to 

 go with the swarm, and that gives the 

 mother colony a new queen a week be- 

 fore the usual time ? 



Still, Mr. Hamilton might have had 

 more things wrong than he has. 



Bee-Keeping for Women 



In her salutatory Miss Ethel Robson, 

 Conductor of the Woman's Department 

 in the Canadian Bee Journal, makes an 

 unusually strong and convincing plea 

 for bee-keeping for women. Pity that 

 it could not be read by the thousands 

 who are not interested in bee-keeping 

 and yet who might be, instead of being 

 read by the few already interested. Yet 

 its reading will stimulate this latter 

 few, so the article is here given entire: 



We hear a great deal about keeping the 

 boys on the farm and about giving the boys a 

 chance. This is all right, but how often do 

 we hear about keeping the girls on the farm 

 and giving the girls a chance ? Yet year by 

 year the girls are leaving the farm, mainly 

 because they desire a chance for some sort 

 of economic independence. But if country 

 life is to be made attractive and interesting, 

 it is just as necessary that the girls be kept 

 on the farm as the boys. Of the girls who go 

 for school teachers we can make no com- 

 plaint — the children must be taught, and as 

 neither the responsibility nor the emolu- 

 ment of teaching the rising general ion makes 

 much appeal to the young man, the girls will 

 have to till the need. 



But by no means all the girls wlio leave 

 the farms become school teachers; many 

 more go into offices and shops and factories. 

 They do not go in the hope of making their 

 fortunes, or becoming the heads of big busi- 

 ness concerns, or if they do, few realize 

 their ambitions; the best they can look for- 

 ward to is a comfortable livelihood, with 

 the possibility of marriage, for which their 

 work by no means tends to fit them. Yet for 

 many of these girls it is imperative that 

 they make a living; perhaps the family 

 finances can not be stretched sufficiently 

 far to go around, or it may be that a brother 

 has married and they have been crowded 

 out, or possibly it is a wholesome desire to 

 exist by their own exertions; and with a few 

 — Heaven prosper their efforts! — it is the 

 quenchless ambition to spend themselves 

 in the service of humanity. The tendency 

 of our educational system seems to have 

 been to educate the girls away from the 

 country. It does not direct their attention 

 to the farm, either for their pleasure or for 

 the more practical matter of making a living 

 -in their own resources. 



How many, I wonder, lookingback on their 

 school days can recall a single effort made 

 to fit them for a life on the farm either in the 

 way of fiiling them with pride in the farmer's 

 place in the community or teaching them 

 that nothing can exceed the simple pleasure 

 in growing and living things. With some 

 shame I confess that it is not very long ago 

 that I looked upon the discussion of the 

 prices of butter and eggs and the best meth- 

 ods of raising turkeys as exceedingly petty, 

 as, indeed, it can be. if viewed from a nar- 

 row, personal standard, but when viewed 

 as a part of the great scheme of^existence it 



takes an another meaning. And so our girls, 

 when face to face with the vital problem of 

 making a living rarely look towards the farm, 

 instead they gravitate to the towns to swell 

 the already over-full ranks of the wage- 

 earners, and drain the country of the fresh 

 young life which it so greatly needs. 



And now, oh. dear women readers of the 

 Canadian Bee Journal, all this preamble is 

 only preparatory to an expression of our 

 firm belief that bee-keeping offers a most 

 remunerative and healthful and interesting 

 employment to women in the country; the 

 great wonder is that they haven't turned 

 their attention to it largely long ago. It is 



the object of this department to stimulat 

 the interest of the women of Canada in thi 

 most promising industry that manv may be 

 induced to enter it on their own account. 

 We do not propose to put men out of busi- 

 ness; indeed, it will be necessary for long 

 enough to have the enterprise and experi- 

 ence of the men, if the honey trade is to 

 prosper; but there are at present thousands 

 of tons of nectar going to waste yearly in the 

 fields of Canada, which we women may have 

 for the taking, if we only have the initiative 

 and perseverance to make our own. So. 

 come along, let us see how much of it we can 

 gather! 



Conducted by J. L. Ever, Mt, Joy, Ontario. 



Hot Weather and Honey-Dearth 



In the May number of the American 

 Bee Journal I mentioned the fact of 

 the season being later than usual. How 

 Nature can change things in a hurry 

 when she takes a notion! 



About 10 days ago rains fell, and 

 then great heat followed, and for the 

 past 6 days the heat was simply torrid. 

 Vegetation has come forth with a rush, 

 and indications are now that the clover 

 will actually be in bloom earlier than 

 last year. Dandelions are out in full 

 bloom in the forenoons, but will not 

 last long with the present heat. To- 

 night (May 22) the fronts of the hives 

 are all covered with great clusters of 

 bees like in July instead of May, and, 

 where supers are not on, some swarms 

 will likely issue. Apple-blossoms are 

 also out, but in the afternoons, when 

 the dandelions are closed, the bees will 

 try to rob if they are handled, showing 

 plainly that the bloom is devoid of 

 nectar. Whether the great heat we are 

 having is a factor or not in bringing 

 about this condition I know not, but I 

 do know that the absence of nectar 

 makes it mighty unpleasant fordoing 

 any work in the apiary in the after- 

 noons. 



• — I ^ I — • 



Ontario Apiary Inspectors for 1911 



J. S, Schrank, Port Elgin. 

 D. Chalmers, Poole. 

 John Artley, Blantyre. 

 W. A. Chrysler. Chatham. 

 John Newton. TThamesford. 

 James Armstrong. Cheapside. 

 Arthur Adamson, Erindale. 

 Henry Johnson, Craighurst, 

 Homer Burk, Highland Creek, 

 W. Scott. Wooler. 

 Alex. Dickson. Lancaster, 

 J. B. Checkley. Linden Bank, 

 Herbert Doherty, Lang Bay. 

 Morley Pettit. Guelph, 

 R. Fretz, O. A. C. Guelph. 

 G. L. Jarvis. O. A. C, Guelph, 

 F. E. Millen. O. A. C, Guelph. 



In looking over the foregoing list of 

 inspectors for Ontario for the present 

 season, it will be noticed that three 

 students of the Agricultural College 

 from Guelph are among the number. 

 This is a step in the right direction, as 

 it is hard to get qualified men to go out 

 on inspection work, as most of them 

 are quite heavily interested in their 

 own behalf in so far as looking after 

 bees is concerned. Indeed, there is no 

 question but that many of the men act- 

 ing are doing so at a personal sacrifice. 



and if it is possible to get students 

 trained for the work, certainly the 

 movement will be approved by most of 

 the bee-keepers. 



It may be argued that students are 

 not qualified well enough to act as in- 

 spectors, but I believe we may have 

 implicit confidence in Mr. Pettit, who 

 has charge of the work to a great ex- 

 tent, and may trust to his judgment in 

 the sending out of any men on this im- 

 portant branch of the Government ser- 

 vice. I understand that the students 

 named on the list have been with thor- 

 oughly competent men during the past 

 few weeks, and are being drilled in the 

 practical side of the work they will be 

 called upon to perform. Of course, 

 they have had the theoretical part of 

 the training imparted to them through 

 the winter months at the College, As 

 the young men in question are con- 

 templating taking up bee-keeping as a 

 specialty, the training they will receive 

 while "on the road " should prove of 

 great value to them in the future when 

 thev enter their chosen vocation for 

 life! 



•-•-*■ 



Carniolan Bees and Swarming 



A friend in Sunnyside, Calif., writes 

 me in reference to the Carniolan bees, 

 asking me to explain in the .American 

 Bee Journal how I control swarming 

 with this race of bees. Judging from 

 what he says, he has never kept any of 

 these bees, and has been influenced by 

 the many reports of the excessive 

 swarming of Carniolans. 



Now, I do not deny but what they 

 will swarm more than Italians, but I do 

 insist that this race has been maligned 

 unduly on this point, as with a large 

 hive the swarming problem is easily 

 controlled. And right here let me say 

 that one reason they swarm sooner 

 than some other bees, is because they 

 are so much more populous early in 

 the season, and if allowed to become 

 crowded in the brood-chamber, nat- 

 urally they seek relief from these un- 

 natural conditions. 



I use the Jumbo-size hive, and it is a 

 rare thing indeed when I do not have 

 to give supers to the colonies in these 

 hives by the time fruit-bloom comes 

 on. No matter how cold the weather 

 is previous to this period, if the colony 

 has abundance of honey to draw on, 

 the condition named will always be in 



