MARCH 1, 1913 



141 



Notes from Canada 



J. L. Byee, Mt. Joy, Ont. 



Some of our Ontario chaps have gone to 

 California for the winter; and judging by 

 that i^ieture on page 83, Feb. 1, they seem 

 to have found what they went after. 



* * * 



The " short course " recently held at 

 Guelph was pronoiinced a success by all 

 who had tlie good fortune to be present. 

 I'he writer was there for only two days, but 

 that was long enough to convince him that 

 the students were satisfied that they were 

 well rewarded for their time and expenses. 

 ]\Ir. Clark, of Borodino, gave a series of 

 l.Hitui-es on queen-rearing, while a number 

 (if Ontario men assisted in the lectures and 

 discussions. Among them were Messrs. Sib- 

 bald. Armstrong. Nolan, Anguish, Schrenck, 

 Kainerd, Harkness, and a number of othei's 

 well knoAvn to the fraternity. 

 -* * ■* 



Dr. Miller says on page 790, Dec. 1.5, that 

 a temperature of 32 to 3.5 degrees would be 

 considered ideal wintering, even if there 

 were no flight for four or five months. 

 "While we shall never have the privilege of 

 ]i roving the matter one way or the other, 

 I venture to say that wintering would not 

 be every thing desirable under such condi- 

 tions, as the bees would be more or less 

 uneasy all the time, and consume stores 

 and go to brood-rearing — in the end would 

 not come out as well as though the temper- 

 ature had been much lower than that during 

 most of the time the bees were confined. 

 Rear in mind this is just my opinion, and 

 1 make no promise to try to prove tlie thing 

 one way or the other. 



Regarding the matter of sugar syrup 

 versus natural stores, jiage 790, I am sur- 

 prised when the editor says that reports for 

 many years back have shown that a given 

 amount of sugar syrup will go further than 

 the same amount of natural stores. Surely 

 you do not believe that a pound of syrup 

 will go as far as a pound of good honey. 

 While I have to feed lots of sugar syrup 

 some falls, certainly I do not place that 

 proportionate value on the syrup as com- 

 pared with honey. I used to think that a 

 pound of syrup would equal a pound of 

 honey in so far as lasting qualities are 

 concerned; but I now know that at the very 

 least it takes a pound of sugar to have that 

 value. Emphatically, I again say that, if 

 your colony is short weight 15 pounds, in- 

 stead of giving that amount of syrup to 

 make the colony equal to the one heavy 

 enough with honey, use at least that many 



pounds of sugar instead, and then see in 

 the spring if the syrup-fed colony is ahead 

 of the one wintering on the same weight of 

 honey. [See editorial comment elsewhere. 



—Ed.] 



* * * 



I never knew a season in which there has 

 been such a demand for honey as the pres- 

 ent one. Whether the consumption is in- 

 creasing or the last crop much shorter than 

 we estimated, one thing is certain: Many 

 thousand pounds of honey could have been 

 sold during the past three months if we had 

 had the goods. Only recently a very respon- 

 sible firm asked me to send them at once 14 

 or 15 thousand pounds, and I was unable to 

 send them that many hundred pounds, let 

 alone thousand. Some think the shortage 

 is too short, even from the producer's stand- 

 l^oint, as it is feared ihat, being unable to 

 get honey at a reasonable price, they will 

 try to get a substitute to take its place. 

 While T do not fear that very much, how I 

 would have liked to fill that order for 15,000 

 ]iounds ! 



« * « 



The vagaries of the weather are hard to 

 explain ; for while the conditions have been 

 unusually cool, not to say cold, in the far 

 West, here in Ontario the months of Decem- 

 ber and January were much milder than 

 usual. Since February we have had some 

 winter weather, but at no time this month 

 has the thermometer gone below zero. Only 

 twice this winter have we had a zero tem- 

 perature; but as we have no snow the con- 

 ditions are not any too good for the clover. 

 However, the months of March and April 

 generally decide the clover question. Only 

 once have I known damage to be done in 

 Februai-y. This mild winter should be good 

 for outdoor wintering; and, barring one 

 single report to the contrary, all who have 

 written me say that the bees are wintering 

 well. A number have told me that their 

 bees in regular house cellars have been un- 

 easy, as it has been difficult to keep the tem- 

 perature low enough. On getting these re- 

 ports I wrote to a friend who lives near my 

 bees, some 200 miles east of here, asking 

 him to go into the caves for the purpose of 

 seeing how the bees were. He reported that 

 they were perfectly quiet, and seemed to be 

 wintering in splendid condition. This would 

 lead one to believe that the repositories al- 

 most if not entirely under gi-ound, roof and 

 all, are to be preferred to regnilar house 

 cellars where the air is more apt to be sub- 

 ject to outside conditions and variations. 



