228 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



July 



The Work of the Bee Division 

 of the Dominion Experi- 

 mental Farms 



BY F. \V. L. SLADEN, APIARIST, DOMINION 

 EXPERIMENTAL FARMS 



IContinued from page 201] 



IT is convenient for the purpose of 

 studying honey production in Can- 

 ada to consider three principal re- 

 gions. 1. The Eastern, extending from 

 the Atlantic Coast to Winnipeg ; 2. The 

 Middle West, extending from Winni- 

 peg across the prairie, and including 

 the dry belt of British Columbia; 3. 

 The Pacific Coast, typified by the Lower 

 Mainland. These regions grade into 

 one another and can be subdivided into 

 a number of more or less definite areas. 



The Eastern region, extending from 

 the Atlantic Coast to Winnipeg, has 

 usually sufficient rain, heat and air 

 humidity to make it a good beekeeping 

 country, and nearlyall those who make 

 beekeeping their principal or sole oc- 

 cupation are located in this region. 

 The principal crops of honey are three 

 1. Clover, alsike and white, extending 

 from mid June to mid July or the end 

 of July. 2. Fireweed, from early July 

 to the end of August. 3. Goldenrods 

 and aster from early or mid August to 

 mid September. Locally in southern 

 Ontario and southwestern Quebec there 

 is basswood during clover bloom, and 

 buckwheat in August. It must not be 

 supposed that the whole of this vast 

 region is a good beekeeping country. 

 The greater part of it is thickly wooded, 

 and there are large rocky areas where 

 very little honey can be obtained. 



Alsike and white clover are found 

 principally in the farming country, and 

 seem to reach their best in Ontario 

 south of the Ottawa river. The lake 

 region here steadies the temperature 

 and maintains humidity. At the same 

 time, this being a southern interior sec- 

 tion, heat and fine weather seldom fail, 

 and a clover honey crop of about 100 

 pounds of extracted honey per colony, 

 spring count, may be expected in the 

 better districts where the management 

 is good. Other noted districts for 

 clover honey are the St. Lawrence Val- 

 ley, where the flow is somewhat shorter 

 than in Ontario and the St. John River 

 Valley. Prince Edward Island gives a 

 steady and late yield, and the farming 

 districts of Nova Scotia are productive, 

 but here the clover plants are some- 

 times extensively killed by repeated 

 freezing and thawing when the ground 

 is bare in winter and early spring, and 

 too cold and wet weather for much 

 honey production is encountered in 

 some seasons. White clover is very 

 productive around Winnipeg where, 

 however, it occasionally suffers severely 

 from drouth, and alsike and white clo- 

 ver are of value in the northern Onta- 

 rio dry belt and in the river valleys in 

 northwestern Quebec. 



Fireweed is found in partly cleared 

 lands that are not yet in cultivation, 

 especially in rich moist places where 

 timber is decaying, in places recently 

 devastated by fire and in the clay belt 

 or northern Ontario. It needs fine 

 warm weather to secrete well. It is 

 more valuable than clover in the north- 

 ern part of the Gatineau Valley, and 

 probably at least of equal value in the 

 New Ontario clay belt between North 



Bay and Cochrane, and in the swamp 

 lands around and to the east of Molson, 

 Manitoba. Its merits lie in its long 

 season of yield lasting from early July 

 to the end of August, this being the 

 best part of the season, coming two or 

 three weeks later than clover so that 

 the bees have plenty of time to build 

 up, and in the white color and mild 

 flavor of the honey. Averages of about 

 100 pounds per colony, spring count, 

 appear to have been obtained from this 

 plant during the past seven years in a 

 large apiary at Montcerf, in the Upper 

 Gatineau valley. 



Goldenrods and asters are important 

 in certain sections. The different spe- 

 cies vary very much in honey-produc- 

 ing value, the nature of the land de- 

 termining the presence and abundance 

 of certain species. In the wet lands of 

 Charlotte Co., N. B , especially in the 

 Honeydale district, they constitute the 

 principal source of nectar, and they 

 are valuable generally as a source of 

 surplus in the coastal districts of New 

 Brunswick and Nova Scotia, especially 

 .in the region of Bathurst, N. B,, Monc- 

 ton, N. B , and Amherst, N. S., also in 

 certain places in the Upper Gatineau 

 Valley and in eastern Manitoba. Prob- 

 ably an average of from 50 to 80 pounds 

 of honey per colony can be gotten 

 from them in places where the best 

 species abound. The honey is usually 

 of good quality and varies in different 

 districts from white to golden. The 

 honey gathered in marshy ■listricts is 

 usually bright golden. The wax is yel- 

 low even when the honey is white. The 

 flavor is more or less pronounced, but 

 sometimes very fine, a sample of honey 

 obtained from Honeydale, N. B., having 

 an exquisite flavor and aroma. We may 

 recognize three types of locations for 

 goldenrod and aster which, however, 

 often overlap. 



1. Open swamp or bog, the principal 

 plants here are Solida^e uliginosa,^. tall 

 goldenrod of cylindrical inflorescence; 

 S. ruffosa, a species with spreading in- 

 florescence ; Aster umbetlatus, 2l tall 

 white-flowered species with a large flat 

 inflorescence, and Asler fu7u'ceus, a, ta\\ 

 and handsome species with hairy stem, 

 clasping leaves and large blue flowers. 

 S. tilzginosa and Aster umbellatus com- 

 mence to flower early in August. S. 

 rugosa and Aster puniceus remain in 

 bloom until mid September, so there is 

 a month or five weeks of possible honey 

 flow. The swamp or bog type of loca- 

 tion is largely independent of rain dur- 

 ing the honey flow, but needs fine 

 weather and moderate warmth. 



2. Sandyor gravelly barrens or plains 

 locations in which blueberry is fre- 

 quently abundant. Here we get S. fuber- 

 ula, and in the interior the highly pro- 

 ductive S. sguarrosa, and also asters of 

 the cordifolius group. The honey from 

 these species is gathered very late, dur- 

 ing the last week in .\ugust and first 

 two weeks in September. Good rains 

 in early August followed by fine and 

 moderately warm weather during the 

 flow are needed to get the best results. 

 The color of the honey produced in a 

 location of this kind at an out-apiary 

 that I established at Kazubazua, Que- 

 bec, is nearly white and of a very pleas- 

 ant flavor. 



3. A restricted area with its center in 

 Cumberland Co., N. S , in which Soti- 

 dago graminifolia is a troublesome 

 weed of cultivation. At Amherst in 

 this district the honey gathered in Au- 



gust and September is unwholesome 

 for wintering, and the unwholesome 

 honey is possibly the product of this 

 plant. The common goldenrods of the 

 roadsides and waste places in the farm- 

 ing lands of old Ontario are not heavy 

 producers of honey under ordinary 

 conditions. 



Goldenrods and asters come into 

 flower earlier in the North than in the 

 South and on the coast. 



(To be concluded 1 



Fighting Foulbrood 



BY F. DUNDAS TODD. 



AS I have frequently indicated, we 

 in British Columbia make no 

 pretence of curing foulbrood, 

 we simply wipe out the colony and hive 

 by fire. So far as I know this Province 

 is the only region in the world that is 

 pursuing the policy of total extermina- 

 tion. It may, therefore, be worth while 

 to compile a tabular statement of in- 

 fected apiaries to see if we cannot draw 

 some practical conclusions therefrom. 



Notes on above table. 



Mental hospital. Foulbrood first 

 discovered here. Bees were bought 

 from A. 



A, original apiary affected in Chilli- 

 wack through purchase of old hives in 

 Vancouver. Colonies all strong. B's 

 apiary is one half mile west of A. Just 

 a few affected cells. Prevailing winds 

 were from the east all spring. 



N's apiary originally contained a 

 dozen colonies, but had dwindled to 

 one. It was close to Flynn's apiary, 

 which seems to be the point of origin 

 of all the diseases in this part of Van- 

 couver. On Flynn's death his apiary 

 was dispersed. G, H, and K buying 

 hives. I bought from H. 



C, D, and E are near each other, but 

 fully two and a half miles from the cen- 

 ter of infection. E had had bees for 

 some years, the others had just started. 

 C bought from D. 



O, P, and Q live close together. The 

 last named bought an old hive from 

 somebody, cannot say who, and prob- 

 ably introduced the disease into his 

 locality. 



F had the infection brought to him 

 by D in a new hive-body that had been 



