DECEMBER 15, 1913 



883 



General Correspondence 



BEEKEEPING IN ONTARIO 



A Glimpse of Some of the Apiaries where Honey 

 is Produced on a Large Scale 



BY H. H. ROOT 



Continued from last issue 



On the last clay of my visit in Canada, as 

 described in the last issue, Mr. Holtermann 

 and Glen took me in their machine across 

 the country to visit other beekeepers in that 

 locality. I wish that I might give a full 

 account of our trip that day through the 

 beautiful country in southern Ontario, and 

 tell more about the beekeepers that we met, 

 but it will be impossible to go into much 

 detail. 



We called at the apiaiy of Mr. Iver 

 Holtermann, another son of R. F. Holter- 

 mann. As would be expected, he also uses 

 the twelve-frame hive and winters in the 

 large cases similar to those used by his 

 father. Fig. 10 gives a giimiDse of his yard 

 at a time when the extracting was about 

 half finished. Mr. Ivar Holtermann also 

 has a power extractor, although it is the 

 regular eight-frame size, and an engine and 

 honey-pumii. He does most of his extract- 

 ing, uncapping and all, himself. By the 



way, when I went over to Canada I had a 

 feeling that the twelve-frame hive was about 

 two frames too large; but my feelings in 

 this respect grew weaker while I was there, 

 and have been much less perceptible ever 

 since. It is true that it takes a pretty husky 

 man to lift around twelve-frame supers of 

 honey ; but aside from the one disadvantage 

 of the greater weight, I can not really see 

 much to criticise in the twelve-frame hive. 

 They certainly enable the beekeeper to con- 

 trol swarming more easily; and if, for any 

 reason, a smaller brood-chamber is desired, 

 it is very easy to use a couple of dummies. 

 Tn other words, the twelve-frame hive cer- 

 tainly permits as large or as small a brood- 

 chamber as any one could possibly want. 

 It is easy to have a ten-frame or even an 

 eight-frame brood-chamber in a twelve- 

 frame hive, but rather difficult to have a 

 twelve-frame brood-chamber in a ten-frame 

 hive. 



We called at the home aj^iary of Mr. 

 James Armstrong, whom I remembered as 

 being for a time in charge of the Ontario 

 honey exhibit at the Pan-American Exposi- 

 tion. Mr. Armstrong was away on an in- 

 specting trip, as he is a district inspector 

 of Ontario; but we m.ade ourselves at home 



Fig. 10. — Apiary of Ivar Holtermann. 



