340 



American l^ee Journal 



October, 1914. 



brother Alban, aged 6. with the mask, 

 wielding the smoker. The little apiary 

 is on a hillside adjoining the father's 

 large apiary. When the picture was 

 taken the bees were flying lively and 

 somewhat cross. These children also 

 have each a little garden of his own 

 which they fenced (with wire) and till 

 themselves. They speak both German 



and English, the parents wisely teach- 

 ing them the mother tongue first. 



The season's honey is now mostly 

 hauled out of the mountain regions 

 and stored, awaiting better prices 



The accompanying snapshots show 

 the loading of the honey cases at the 

 apiaries. 



w 



> 



Our Coming Beekeepers 



Conducted by J. L. Byer, Mt. Joy, Ontario. 



Feeding 



This brings up the feeding question, 

 a live issue this fall in Ontario, as with 

 a failure of the honey crop in most 

 cases, and high price of sugar, m;iny 

 beekeepers hardly know what to do. 

 Wherever sugar can be obtained 

 doubtless it will be fed, but in many 

 cases the beekeepers have not a bit of 

 honey of any kind even if they pre- 

 ferred to feed it instead of sugar syrup. 

 In my own case 1 thought 1 had defi- 

 nitely settled the matter as to how 

 thick a syrup to feed, and it gave me 

 quite a jolt to see what friend J. A. 

 McK'nnon has to say on this question 

 in the last issue of the American Bee 

 Journal. 



While I have the greatest respect for 

 Mr. McKinnon's ideas (he is one of the 

 best queen breeders and all around 

 beekeepers), yet I think he is greatly 

 mistaken in his conclusions when he 

 states that a syrup made of two parts 

 of sugar to one of water, fed in large 

 quantities to the bees, will granulate 

 solidly. I do not even add any acid to 

 the syrup, and I am just about as sure 

 as I can be of anything, that this thick 

 syrup does not act that way with me. 



How do I know? Simply by the fact 

 that after using this proportion for a 

 number of years I have never lost a 

 colony so fed, and when weighing col- 

 onies after being fed this mixture, they 

 always showed a greater net gain than 

 other colonies fed a like amount of 

 sugar with more water to make a thin- 

 ner syrup. 



Often I have " jammed " a very pop- 

 ulous colony to get spare combs to give 

 to weaker colonies in the late fall, and 

 I have never yet noticed this granula- 

 tion when giving these combs to the 

 bees, and these weaker colonies in- 

 variably winter well when so treated. 

 Give me a thick syrup made of two 

 parts of sugar to one of water, feed the 

 syrup warm to the bees in the evening, 

 the faster the better, at any time after 

 Sept. 20 in our locality, and I will not 

 bother about insuring the bees over 

 winter provided proper protection is 

 given, and they have enough of this 

 mixture to keep them until warm 

 weather. When I once find the trou- 

 ble Mr. McKinnon mentions, then I 

 will change the formula, but for the 

 present I am fully persuaded to use the 

 old standard when I start to feed next 

 Monday (21st) if all goes well. 



Outlook Improves 



At this date, Sept. Iti, there has been 

 a wonderful improvement in prospects 

 for next season, as compared with a 

 month ago when sending in the last lot 

 of notes for the American Bee Journal. 

 Bounteous rains came after Aug. 16, 

 accompanied by ten days of warm 

 weather, with the result that everything 

 is as green as in early June, and wher- 

 ever a bit of clover had been able to 

 stand the drouth, it is now showing 

 up nicely. Rains came too late for 

 buckwheat and as a result we have a 

 very light yield of honey from that 

 source. From all information I have 

 been able to gather, conditions are 

 much the same all over the province, 

 barring some favored localities. 



In our own apiaries in York county 

 it will keep us hustling to even up the 

 feeding bill by selling the little buck- 

 wheat surplus we will have. Why not 

 feed buckwheat honey? Simply be- 

 cause it is in super combs and has to 

 be extracted, as very few combs are 

 heavy and sealed enough to place in 

 the brood-nest. Asidefrom that, when 

 buckwheat honey is once extracted, I 

 much prefer to feed sugar syrup even if 

 I have to pay as much for the sugar per 

 pound as I can get for the buckwheat 

 honey. Even when sugar is as high as 

 at the present ($(j.30 per hundred at 

 this date), buckwheat is ruling above 

 that figure, and I shall not feed any of 

 the latter. I have already bought my 

 sugar, the bulk of it, before the raise in 



price. 



*-•-» ■ 



Spiders Protecting Super-Combs 



Placing super-combs outside and 

 allowing spiders to care for them 

 (page 296) has worked finely this year. 

 At the north yard, just referred to, w.; 

 have had over 100 full-depth supers not 

 needed, piled out all summer and not 

 a moth in them, although many can be 

 seen flying around in the evening. At 

 home I had a pile in the apiary simi- 

 larly situated. Have just been looking 

 them over and found a few cells with 

 the tell-tale veil over them. It is too 

 late for any damagenow in our locality. 

 At the bottom of the piles of combs 

 hundreds of wings of moths were 

 found — all that was left of them by the 

 few spiders in evidence. 



^-•-» 



Willow Herb in Ontario 



Have you ever noticed that what at 

 the time may seem a great hardship, 

 will eventually turn out to be " a bless- 

 ing in disguise ?" Last year during 

 the great dearth that we had at the 

 yard 100 miles north, forest fires came 

 uncomfortably near our large apiary 

 and burned over quite a tract ot bush 

 and second growth stuff. 



At the time we thought the few bass- 

 woods that were biirnedand theamount 

 of white clover that was killed in the 

 more open places, augured none too 

 well for next year's prospects. While 

 I had often heard of willow herb from 

 our northern Michigan friends, I never 

 once thought that we would ever know 

 much about the plant here in Ontario. 

 But about Aug. 10 honey began to come 

 in, and we soon found the bulk of it 

 was coming from the beautiful pink 



