Vol. LVI.— No. II 



HAMILTON, ILL, NOVEMBER, 1916 



MONTHLY, $1.00 A YEAR 



GLIMPSES OF ONTARIO 



Scenes Visited by Our Staff Correspondent During a Visit With 



Our Northern Neighbors 



IT was June, the days were balmy and 

 flowers bloomed everywhere. It had 

 been raining day after day until the 

 farmers were in despair. But the 

 clouds had recently lifted, and, being 

 neither hot nor cold, the season was 

 delightful. Ontario is a beautiful coun- 

 try in summer, and June is the month 

 to see it at its best. My first stop was 

 at Chatham, where I was royally enter- 

 tained by Mr. W. A. Chrysler, who is 

 one of the well known beemen of the 

 province. At one time Mr. Chrysler 

 was extensively engaged in the supply 

 business, but a disastrous fire which 

 made it necessary to begin at the bot- 

 tom again as far as manufacturing was 

 concerned, decided him to take up the 

 production of honey again as his prin- 

 cipal dependence. He now has several 

 apiaries, but operates a central ex- 

 tracting plant, preferring to bring the 



honey home to extract rather than to 

 carry a small outfit from yard to yard. 

 Mr. Chrysler has a son who is a genius 

 with machinery and who has fixed up 

 many handy contrivances about the 

 extracting house. They are fortunate 

 in being situated in the natural gas 

 belt and run all machinery with nat- 

 ural gas. The son has made over a 

 gasoline engine to run with gas so that 

 their extractor and such other ma- 

 chinery as they use is run by this 

 power. The settling tanks are ranged 

 in a row along one side of the honey- 

 house with overflow pipes from one to 

 another so that there is no danger of 

 running over. 



An automobile is used for going to 

 and from the outyards. Our first illus- 

 tration gives a good idea of the light 

 crate which is used to hold the load. 

 All about the place are evidences of a 



FIG. i._CHRYSLER AUTOMOBILE FOR OUTYARD WORK 



mechanical handy man, and if space 

 would permit a whole page might be 

 used to describe the various shortcuts 

 which they practice. In the October 

 issue we already gave an account of 

 the Chrysler feeder and bottom com- 

 bined which they use under their hives. 

 The second photograph shows a corner 

 of the home yard. It was formerly 

 surrounded by a solid board fence, but 

 every other board has been removed 

 and it still breaks the wind and avoids 

 the suction which was formerly notice- 

 able as the wind swept down over the 

 fence. 



In Mr. Chrysler's car we made the 

 trip to Merlin on the lake shore to 

 visit the Deadman apiary. Mr. G. A. 

 Deadman, who is a druggist at Brus- 

 sels, spends his summers with his bees 

 at Merlin. He has 350 colonies in one 

 yard, which is probably the largest 

 number kept in a single yard in the 

 province. Beside the honey-house is a 

 long open shed for storage purposes 

 and some enclosed rooms to furnish 

 the beekeepers with pleasant quarters 

 during their summer stay. Mr. D. 

 Barone, of Italy, son of a well-known 

 Italian writer on beekeeping, and him- 

 self a beekeeper of note, was assisting 

 Mr. Deadman for the summer. Miss 

 Freya Hahn, of Toronto, was also 

 there, serving an apprenticeship. The 

 writer met an unusual number of ladies 

 who are beekeepers in Ontario, and 

 fully as enthusiastic as the men. 



One would question the possibility 

 of support of such a large number of 

 colonies in one yard, but in a favorable 

 season the average production is 

 around 100 pounds surplus per colony 

 which we would regard as very good in 

 the Mississippi Valley States. Mr. Dead- 

 man uses a brood-frame 12j4xll^^, 

 which is a size not commonly used. 

 However, he seems to be well satisfied 

 with results obtained from its use. The 

 ground about Merlin is very level, and 

 because of the excessive rainfall during 

 the spring, there was some diflSculty in 



