1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



407 



Notes from Canada 



By R. Y. HOLTERMANN 



Mention was made of a foul-brood inspec- 

 tor advising bee-keepers by letter not to al- 

 low dead stocks to be robbed out in the 

 spring. D. Chalmers claims credit, and the 

 writer hereby apologizes for the slip of mem- 

 ory. 



THE PBEVENTION OF SWARMING. 



Last year I did not break up a single 

 brood-chamber, nor remove combs of brood 

 to prevent swarming. I have become more 

 and more opposed to disturbing the order of 

 combs in the brood-chamber. 



honey-flow begins, by means of which the 

 bees store some surplus honey, and from 

 that time until the bees get to working 

 well in the super; then, again, when the 

 supers become crowded. 

 -*- 



FOUL-BROOD LEGISLATION. 



How is it that the foul-brood question has 

 stirred up so much bitterness in so many 

 lands? In some cases the odor of the cor- 

 respondence has been almost as unsavory 

 as that of the disease itself. The British 

 Bee Journal has for some time had pages 

 of such correspondence. One side is in favor 

 of foul-brood legislation, while the other is 

 opposed to legislation for the suppression 

 of the disease. A bee-keeper in Canada 

 opposed to foul-brood legislation would be a 

 curiosity. I know of none. 



THE INTRODUCTION OF QUEENS. 



It required a good deal of courage for the 

 writer of these notes to introduce a nine-dol- 

 lar breeding queen by the method given, p. 

 313 (starving the queen for three quarters of 

 an hour) yet I made my first plunge. A 

 platform was laid in front of the hive upon 

 which I would be able to detect readily the 

 expelled dead queen. The experiment 

 proved entirely successful. 



At this date, .Tune 10, I have fed this 

 week to some 400 colonies about 1400 lbs. of 

 sugar syrup; last week about 1700 lbs. 

 of the same, and previous to that about 

 2000 lbs. There were not ten per cent of the 

 colonies which did not require feeding. 

 How is that for a sjjring? My bees, how- 

 ever, are in better condition than last year, 

 and on .June 9 were gathering clover nectar 

 very freely. I^et us hope the corner has 

 been turned. 



SWARMING CONTROLLED BY REMOVING 

 BROOD. 



Sometimes the cure is worse than the dis- 

 ease; and in my estimation, during a heavy 

 flow it is inexpc ent to remove much brood 

 from the brci -cliamber. The life history 

 of the coloi- IS so regulated that brood is 

 reared wh' uever the older bees are wearing 

 themselves out; to destroy brood coming on 

 is to give the economy of the hive a rude 

 jolt, and is a great and injurious waste. 



<^ 



SWARMING IN THE WEST. 



I do not find the bees are as much inclined 

 to swarm during a rapid tiow as during a 

 light flow, page 282, May 1. Again, with a 

 steady flow there is less tendency to swarm- 

 ing than when the flow is broken; and dur- 

 ing the days the bees "loaf " in the hive the 

 hive is crowded with bees. I quite agree 

 with Mr. Foster when he writes, "cold nights 

 act as a sort of damper to the warmth of 

 the swarming fever." In my estimation, 

 in any locality the critical time is when a 



THE SIZE OP FRAME. 



When Editor Root advises deepening the 

 Langstroth frame and using the ten-frame 

 Langstroth bottom-boards, covers, queen- 

 excluders, and supers, thus securing the 

 capacity of a twelve-frame Langstroth hive, 

 let me say I believe such a frame a better 

 one than the I^angstroth, and there is so 

 much can be said in favor of the plan that 

 I would not raise a word of objection. In 

 Canada, however, the ten-frame I^angstroth 

 has not been used very much, and therefore 

 that condition does not exist to any extent. 

 A ten-frame Langstroth brood-chamber 

 could be converted into a hive such as Edi- 

 tor Root suggests by nailing a stri}) all 

 around to the lower edge of the brood-cham- 

 ber. The brood-combs can be placed in the 

 super, deeper frames substituted, and thus 

 nothing lost. 



SCIENTIFIC OR PRACTICAL. 



In the annual report of the Ontario Bee- 

 keepers' Association, p. 60, Mr. P. W. Hod- 

 getls, secretary of said association, and offi- 

 cer in the Ontario Department of Agricul- 

 ture, states, "In regard to the scientific or 

 practical side of the work, our college at 

 Guelph has to be practical; at the same 

 time they are doing very good scientific 

 work, and there is no doubt that Mr. Pettit 

 can follow such lines, and we can get good 

 results from both. We have endeavored to 

 make all the experimental work at the Col- 

 lege practical, so that our bee-keepers, or 

 men in other lines, can go there and see 

 what is being done and can be tlone on the 

 farm. ^Ir. Pettit has a tremendous field for 

 working along scientific lines, and I am 

 hoping he will be able to combine the two." 

 May scientific research not be eminently 

 practical? To sit down and figure the 

 length of the third side of a right-angled 

 triangle, after having been given the length 

 of the two sides of the right-angled triangle 

 is scientific; but to mark out such a trian- 

 gle and measure the third side to get its 

 length would, in the eyes of many, be more 

 practical; but — is it? 



