A run.. \9\9 



I. !•; .\ NM N G S IN B K E C V L T V K V. 



FROM NORTH, EAST, WEST AND SOUTH 



keep the brood warm. The queen at this 

 season will produce all of the brood that the 

 bees can possibly cover; and, if many of the 

 old bees are lost before plenty of young 

 bees are hatched, the colony may be lost. 

 The writer has seen hundreds of colonies, 

 with several frames of brood in all stages 

 of development and with a good queen, have 

 only a handful of bees left. This, to me, 

 came as near representing ' ' spring dwin- 

 dling" (as written of by our Eastern 

 friends) as anything I have ever seen. With 

 some colonies strong in bees as one finds in 

 most apiaries at this time of the year, you 

 can select a few combs containing plenty 

 of young and hatching bees. Shake the ad- 

 hering bees in front of the weak colonies, 

 being sure that you do not get the queen 

 with them. The old bees will return to their 

 own hives, while the young ones will enter 

 the home of the weak colony and be re- 

 ceived without trouble. As the hives be- 

 come filled with bees and brood, it will be 

 wise to put on supers well ahead of the 

 probable honey flow. To arrange your 

 manipulation so that the supers will go on 

 just as the surplus honey flow starts is, of 

 course, the ideal way. But to have all of 

 the colonies with supers on a week ahead of 

 time is far better than to have the hives 

 overcrowded and not get the surplus room 

 until several days after the flow starts. If 

 one uses excluders there is all the more ne- 

 cessity for early supering, as the bees will 

 not always remove the honey crowded 

 around the brood. Then, too, as the queen 

 cannot get above, swarming will be much 

 more likely to get the attention of the bee- 

 keeper. 



The Eiverside County Beekeepers' Club 

 held its annual meeting on Feb. 22, at the 

 county court house, Riverside. It was unani- 

 mously voted to instruct the secretary to 

 write to our representatives at Sacramento 

 asking them not to support the beekeeper 

 bills now in the legislature. The new laws 

 would place the industry under the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture and would have a state 

 apiarist appointed. All county work would 

 be under the Horticultural Commissioner. 

 Any one engaging in the business would pay 

 an annual license fee of 10 cents per colony. 

 No bees could be moved at any time with- 

 out first giving 10 days ' notice to the Hor- 

 ticultural Commissioner. We do not feel 

 that any improvement would be made by 

 such drastic changes as proposed by Mr. 

 Lindley in these bills. The following ofiicers 

 were elected for the ensuing year: R. Pow- 

 ell, president; Chas. Hinzie, vice-president; 

 Lester Hamburger, secretary. Mr. Home, 

 who has served the club so successfully for 

 several years, found it necessary to give up 

 the work of secretary, owing to his time 

 being so taken up with his duties as secre- 

 tary-manager of the Orange Belt Co-opera- 



tive Honey Producers' Exchange and with 



the management of his beekeeping interests. 



Corona, Calif. L. L. Andrews. 



In Ontario Weather has continued 



milder than usual right 

 up to March 7, and it looks as if the present 

 winter will be one to remember for its mild 

 weather. Yet a peculiar feature, so far as 

 beekeepers are concerned, is that we have 

 not had a day warm enough for a thoro 

 flight since last fall. This applies to local 

 conditions, as they have no doubt fared dif- 

 ferently in southwest Ontario. Wherever 

 bees have had an abundance of good stores 

 they appear to be in good shape, provided 

 they were of fair strength last fall. Un- 

 fortunately, many are reporting bees short 

 of stores, and we have to confess that some 

 of our own bees are in that condition. Bees 

 in the smaller hives that had little honey 

 last fall and thus had to be fed, are the 

 best off at present, as with well-filled brood- 

 nests there was little room for breeding and 

 a consequent using up of stores. Our larger 

 hives that had natural stores, and, owing 

 to sugar shortage, were not fed sugar syrup, 

 are in many cases very short of food; in 

 fact, some are about out and have to be 

 fed — a nice condition surely for bees to be 

 in by the middle of March. I have had 

 colonies get short of stores in April now and 

 then, but never before at this season. My 

 judgment was either very faulty when pass- 

 ing them last fall or else consumption of 

 stores has been abnormal where bees had 

 too much room to rear brood out of season. 

 Mr. Kindig, in the March issue of Gleanings, 

 advises in case of shortage of stores to feed 

 "hard candy or loaf sugar." Of course, 

 candy answers all right, but I have my 

 doubts about the loaf sugar, altho I have 

 seen it recommended previously. I have 

 been trying a few pounds on a few colonies, 

 and when they are forced to take it, I find 

 the bulk of it being thrown out at entrances 

 in granules. Has any one really fed loaf 

 sugar with success? Reports would be in- 

 teresting. 



Last week I was in Toronto, and a casual 

 inquiry here and there showed that honey 

 is much easier than a few weeks ago. Not 

 that it is selling much lower in a retail way, 

 but wholesalers are playing a waiting game 

 and do not care to load up at any price. 



Combless packages of bees are now ad- 

 mitted to the mails of Canada on similar 

 terms and restrictions as to form of pack- 

 age, etc., as are in force in the United 

 States. I understand that arrangements 

 have been made with the customs so that 

 clearance will be made at the customs' port 

 nearest consignee and the packages for- 

 warded to the consignee's postoffiee direct. 

 But I have had nothing definite on this 



