418 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



About a foot of snow lav under the trees. 



York County had several partial flights 

 during the bright days of March; but the 

 temperature rarely got much above the 

 freezing-point in the shade, although the 

 month as a whole was delightful. A good 

 friend in Orillia, Mr. Bruce Murphy, a 

 manufacturing jeweler who keeps a few 

 bees as a side issue, very kindly wrote me 

 frequently as to the weather up there ; and 

 as he is only fifteen miles from our bees I 

 felt sure that his local conditions would be 

 similar to what they would be at our 

 apiary. 



To make a long story short, the bees up 

 there had no flight until April 7, when the 

 weather turned warm. On the next day I 

 took the train and went up to see how bad 

 the wreck was. The bees had been closely 

 confined for over five months. Amving at 

 the destination about 1 p. M., and getting a 

 key at a neighbor's, I started to walk 

 through the bush south of the apiary. 

 About a foot of snow was still among the 

 trees, as can be seen in the distance at the 

 left-hand corner of one of the pictures. 

 The day was warm — fully 60 in the shade; 

 and as I heard the roar of bees I knew they 

 were not all dead, anyway. As I approach- 

 ed the yard I squinted through the trees 

 when within sight of the apiary, expecting 

 to see the smeary marks of dysentery 

 ai'ound entrances of the cases. As I got a 

 bit closer, sure enough there were dark 

 colors there all right; but as I got closer 



still, 1 saw that the coloring was bees, 

 which seemed to lie by the hundreds around 

 every entrance. I soon found that they 

 were robbing out two colonies that had died 

 from queenlessness, and of course the bees 

 were guarding their entrances. But I as- 

 sure you that, after not seeing the bees for 

 so long, the tremendous roar of the thou- 

 sands of bees in the air was the sweetest 

 music I had heard for some time. 



A rapid but by no means thorough exam- 

 ination that afternoon and the next fore- 

 noon revealed the following facts: Not a 

 spot of dysentery in the whole apiaiy, the 

 bees appeared lively and healthy in every 

 way. Out of the 250, probably ten or 

 twelve were dead. I suspect all had been 

 queenless last fall, as the few I looked into 

 liad no bees, and had solid combs of honey. 

 Roughly speaking, 200 appeared to be 

 strong while about forty were weak. A 

 lot of swarming in August, no doubt, left 

 some weak colonies last fall ; and during the 

 flow in September there was little brood, 

 and field bees would be worn out. That 

 would mean weaker colonies than under 

 ordinary conditions. Bees were heavy with 

 stores, and they seemed to have used little 

 for wintering. Stores were in excellent 

 condition; and in the queenless colonies 

 mentioned, some unsealed aster honey was 

 at the bottom of combs, thin and watery, 

 but not fermented. Of course I was gi'ati- 

 fied ; and while too early to whistle very 



