592 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Ocr. 1 



NOTES FROM CANADA 



By R. F. Holtermann. 



place for empty section-supers. 

 Wesley Foster and Dr. Miller have referred 

 to the place for locating empty section supers. 

 Dr. Miller says, page 490, Aug. 15, "When 

 I've put an empty section-super under a 

 partly filled one in a waning flow, the bees 

 nave kept on with the old super, and left the 

 lower one untouched." My experience un- 

 der such a condition has been that the bees 

 tend to crowd the brood-chamber more with 

 honey. 



"SHAKING" BEES. 



From the statements made by some bee- 

 keepers one would think that certain portions 

 of Italy, Mexico, etc., must have harvested a 

 tremendous honey crop after the recent 

 . earthquakes. "Shaking " is largely a thing 

 of the past with me. I never had much 

 faith in it as a proper method of treating 

 bees; and, after trymg it, I liked it less than 

 ever. When it comes merely to throwing 

 bees about and leaving the hive just as il: 

 was before, I am quite satisfied there is noth- 

 ing in it. To my mind, Adrian Getaz, in Bee- 

 keepers' Review, well expresses the truth in 

 the heading of an article "Change of Condi- 

 tions, Instead of Shaking, Produces Results." 



THE ENERGY OF SWARMS. 



Dr. Miller, what a man of war you are! 

 and perhaps I may add, what a man of courage 

 that you dare attack the well-established 

 fact (?) that a swarm works with greater en- 

 ergy than a colony which has not swarmed. 

 But let me whisper to you that I am sure you 

 are quite right. A swarm does not have to 

 look after brood, the fruit of three weeks' 

 laying in the hive, and almost all the bees in 

 the swarm can go to the field; but in three 

 weeks' time, and if a virgin queen has issued 

 with the swarm in perhaps five weeks' time, 

 there are far less bees in the colony; and if 

 at that time a honey-flow is available the 

 bee-keeper who has kept his bees content 

 without swarming will gather with his one 

 colony more than the one who allowed the 

 colony to fall to pieces. 



BASSWOOD POLLEN. 



On page 267 of the American Bee Journal, 

 right above an article written by G. M. Doo- 

 little who says basswood has no pollen, is 

 the following, contributed by J. L. Byer: 



It is the trenerally accepted idea, I believe, that bass- 

 wood yields little if any pollen. If any one were here 

 now he could easily be convinced of the fallacy of this 

 idea. For the past week the weather has been showery 

 and very cool for the season of the year, and to-day, 

 July 22, the basswoods are in full bloom. On trees 

 near the house here, the bees are working on the 

 bloom durintr the rain, which is falling lightly: and 

 although they are getting but little nectar, nearly all 

 the bees have minute light-yellow pollen-balls at- 

 tached to them as they enter the hives. 



Strange to say, the bumble-bees are in full force in 

 the bloom, and nearly every one of them has quite 

 large loads attached to it, as they can be seen flitting 

 among the blossoms. Personally I have not the least 

 doubt that the pollen is coming from the blossoms on 



whicli ihoy aro working; and. inde d, wh.il other rea- 

 sonable solution of the problem could be otieied? 



It is the tirsl time I have noticed the like; and when 

 I first saw tiie bumble-bees with the pollen I could 

 hardly believe my own eyes. I bilieve it is generally 

 the case that, when pollen is being yielded by a plant 

 in an abnormal proportion, the nectar is scarce — at 

 least this is always the case with clover, and at pres- 

 sent it is true with the basswood, as practically no 

 honey is coming in. Of course, the weather is really 

 too cool and showery to expect nectar to come in from 

 any source. 



I, too, found the bees bringing in this col- 

 ored pollen in the basswood season. As to 

 the quantity of pollen, it may be true as stat- 

 ed; but I doubt whether the amount of pol- 

 len produced by the blossom varies. Is it 

 not rather that the bees visit more blossoms 

 to get a load, and that their attention is di- 

 rected to a greater extent to the pollen? 



SELLING HONEY. 



There is no doubt that over half of the hon- 

 ey at present produced in Canada could be 

 sold by bee-keepers locally. This is espe- 

 cially true in the rural communities. I find 

 that farmers are prepared to buy a large 

 quantity of honey. In many cases they buy 

 sixty-pound cans; but they want honey — not 

 a cross between nectar and honey — and they 

 want good quality all through. In very many 

 instances this has not been the case. Now 

 that we have a provincial apiarist we should 

 get the most out of him possible. In my es- 

 timation he has too much to do when he de- 

 votes all his time and energies to his govern- 

 ment work. Furthermore, if he devotes all 

 his time and energies to government work 

 he has too much to do without having certain 

 counties to inspect for foul brood, as he has 

 at present. For years I have felt that a gov- 

 ernment official who has no personal interest 

 in the sale of honey, and whose motives could 

 not be influenced by voice and pen, could 

 draw attention to honey, and increase the 

 consumption of it enormously. By all means 

 let us get the most' value out of our provin- 

 cial apiarist; and when he produces the goods 

 as to valuable work, let us insist that he be 

 well paid. The provincial apiarist may and 

 must see how much needs doing; but he will 

 be powerless to do it unless the Department 

 of Agriculture enables him to do it; and bee- 

 keepers can strengthen his hands by educat- 

 ing the Department of Agriculture. 



ARE QUEEN-EXCLUDERS HONEY-EXCLUDERS? 



On page 491, August 15, Louis H. Scholl calls queen- 

 excluders " honey-excluders." Now, if he is right we 

 want to know it. You might tell us whether large 

 honey-producers like Dr. C. C. Miller, G. M. Doolittle, 

 and others use queen-excluders or not; and if not, how 

 do they manage? Three years ago some queens got 

 up into my sections and spoiled enough honey to pay 

 for all the queen-excluders I would ever use. Since 

 then I use them on every hive. 



Cokeville, Pa., Aug. 27. JOHN Major. 



[Comb-honey producers like Dr. C. C. Miller, G. M. 

 Doolittle, and many others who run for comb honey, 

 do not, as a rule, use queen-excluders. The queen ap- 

 parently does not like to go into a lot of little compart- 

 ments like section boxes containing foundation or 

 comb drawn out from foundation. When she goes 

 above it is generally to lay drone eggs in drone-cells. 

 But the majority of extracted-honey producers find it 

 necessary to use excluders, and not all of them find 

 they are honey-excluders. We shall be glad to get 

 additional testimony from other producers.— Ed.] 



