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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



June, 1919 



FROM NORTH, EAST, WEST AND SOUTH 



far as I can find, our industry receives no 

 official recognition, we have no beekeepers ' 

 organization, no state inspector, no apicul- 

 tural department, no state appropriations 

 are made in our interest, there is no legisla- 

 tion pertaining to our industry — in fact, we 

 are the most helpless State in the Union to 

 cope with any emergency that may arise. 



Most of us are very careful and are con- 

 stantly on the lookout for any symptoms of 

 disease. Even in the matter of introducing 

 queens from other States, we are careful to 

 burn the cages and bees, tho there may be 

 no danger from this source. It might be 

 well for beginners to purchase their queens 

 in Florida and take no risks, for it is the be- 

 ginners who will suffer most. There is just 

 as good stock in Florida as anywhere and 

 this year conditions seem exceptionally well 

 suited to raising the finest of queens. 



It is not, however, from the purchase of 

 queens that we shall get disease, but it will 

 come from the movement of carlots of bees 

 from Northern States to take advantage of 

 our mild winters. I have before me a num- 

 ber of letters from States as far north as 

 Michigan, regions where foul brood is ram- 

 pant, the writers of which state that they 

 will be bringing down carlots of bees next 

 October and November, and taking them 

 back after the orange bloom. As things are 

 at present we cannot prevent this. We who 

 have experienced the Florida wintering 

 problems and the erratic orange flows know 

 that the moving of bees to Florida for the 

 winter will not be a profitable undertaking, 

 and will not be tried more than once by any- 

 one, but the damage to our interests may be 

 permanent. All writers state that they do 

 not want to "butt in" on anyone; but they 

 cannot realize that all orange locations 

 that would be suitable for such wholesale 

 occupation are already being developed by 

 resident beekeepers, and there is already too 

 much "butting in" being practiced by Flor- 

 ida beekeepers themselves. There have 

 been several cases around here where bees 

 were placed in a starving condition by the 

 crowding in of outsiders during the orange 

 flow. 



I invite correspondence from experienced 

 Florida beemen on this subject of long-dis- 

 tance migratory beekeeping, in anticipation 

 of a special article in the August or Septem- 

 ber Gleanings. Also, I would state that un- 

 less I receive more co-operation from the big 

 producers of Florida my name must disap- 

 pear from this column of Gleanings. [Not 

 if we can help it. — Editor.] 



At the present time gallberry is blooming, 

 and it is yielding exceptionally well. Saw 

 palmetto is beginning to open, and the pros- 

 pects indicate that we shall obtain much 

 more honey from this source than we did 

 from the orange. Already that "most de- 

 lightful drowsy humming" is to be heard 



at night. One friend describes this "hum- 

 ming" or "roaring" as "the bees counting 

 their money." ' Harry Hewitt. 



Apopka, Fla. 



» * * 



In Ontario '^^^'^ weather, besides be- 

 ing very rainy to date, 

 May 8, has also been steadily cool, and it 

 has been a good while since bees have had 

 so few flying days in the spring as has been 

 the case this season. One beekeeper near 

 nie who winters most of his bees in the cel- 

 lar, had been waiting in vain for a fit day 

 to take his bees out of the cellar, and when 

 I was at his place a few days ago the bees 

 were inside yet and naturally very uneasy. 

 On the other hand, I know of a large num- 

 ber of colonies in different yards that were 

 taken out of the cellar on March 25. Our 

 own bees, 70 miles away, that were wintered 

 in the cellar, were placed on summer stands 

 on Apr. 21, and they are in fair shape but 

 somewhat short of stores. During the past 

 few days, prominent beekeejjers have writ- 

 ten me saying that many of their colonies 

 had stopped brood-rearing, having neither 

 eggs nor unsealed larvae, altho the queens 

 were all right in every way. Evidently, the 

 long continued spell of cool, wet weather, 

 with little or no pollen or nectar coming in, 

 is the cause of this condition. 



This brings up the question of stimulative 

 feeding here in the North during early 

 spring. For years I have been opposed to 

 the practice for many reasons, but there is 

 a possibility that, under certain conditions, 

 spring stimulation may prove beneficial. 

 Early in March we found quite a few colo- 

 nies in the five yards near home that were 

 short of stores at that early date. A few 

 were nearly out of food, but the majority 

 of the 40 odd colonies affected had poor 

 stores that had granulated solid in the 

 combs and the bees were unable to use it, 

 and were showing signs of dysentery. With 

 considerable misgivings, we started to feed 

 these colonies, placing an inverted five- 

 pound pail over each, filled with syrup, cov- 

 ering all over snugly with the packing ma- 

 terial on top. About every 10 days they 

 were given a pail of food, no matter what 

 the weather was like. While the weather 

 since then has been very cool, yet we have 

 had very few days of really severe weather. 

 Anyway, I have to confess that at this date 

 many of the colonies thus fed are away 

 ahead of others having lots of stores from 

 last fall and so not fed this spring. But 

 I am not changing my opinion yet as to 

 spring feeding, for even if an occasional 

 season may show good results from the prac- 

 tice, the discomforts and worry that go 

 along with the job more than make up for 

 any benefit gained, so far as I understand 

 the matter. 



Markham, Ont J. L. Byer. 



