Dec. 14, 19CS 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



861 



seems to me to be pretty straight. Either Nebraska, Iowa, 

 Missouri or Kansas, are the States I have selected to settle 

 in, and I only want to know the best places for my object. 

 I hope to be with you within the next 12 months. 



Lancaster, England. 



r 



=\ 



\= 



Canabian 

 -vScebom-f 



Conducted by Morlet Pettit, Villa Nova, Ont. 



A Peculiar Fall in Ontario 



=/ 



This has been a peculiar fall in Ontario, and a hard one 

 on bees. Since about the middle of October there has not 

 been a good flying day except in the most southern parts of 

 the Province. All signs seem to fail. The weather does 

 everything but what well-ordered weather would be expected 

 to do. One day bears every indication of approaching cold, 

 rough weather ; the next will be fine and bright, but not 

 quite warm enough for bees to fly. These days are most 

 trying. Uncomfortable from long confinement the bees 

 grow restless — some fly out and are lost, and all consume 

 more stores and fill up faster than they would in more 

 steadily cold weather. 



While putting bees into the cellar last week, we found 

 in some yards they were spotting around some entrances, 

 and covers were spotted considerably from their last flight. 

 Of course, this can not be helped, but it will be a warning 

 to give bees extra attention during the winter. 



Four Days Putting- Bees into Cellars 



Four days of putting bees into cellars under private 

 houses give plenty of varied experiences in that line. While 

 at the Toronto convention, in November, I arranged with 

 R. F. Holtermann to "change works," as the farmers say, 

 and secured the assistance of J. H. McCauley, another en- 

 thusiastic bee-keeper. The following Monday (Nov. 20) we 

 went at it. The first cellar, near Brantford, is stone with 

 cement floor, all in one room. I had partitioned off with 

 boards a room for the bees separate from the fruit and veg- 

 etables. The stairway is broad enough for two to walk 

 right down with two hives on a hand-barrow. We three 

 put the 112 hives in and blocked them up from the bottom- 

 boards behind, in about 4 hours, although we had a long 

 distance to carry them. The windows of this cellar will be 

 banked with straw, and a 4 inch pipe run from near the 

 pipe of the cook-stove in the room above. 



Supper finished, we started out in the darkness to drive 

 about 8 miles through mud. Ye city or sand dwellers have 

 no idea what mud roads are. All the way we were harassed 

 by the thought that the next lot — 1 8 hives — had to go 

 through the cellar window I Next morning was bright, 

 with indications of a flying day. 



Cellar No. 2 is under a large brick house, and hasihree 

 compartments— -first, vegetables ; second, furnace ; third, 

 bees. With no outside stairway there was no way out of it 

 — through the window they must go. 



We got another man, and with two outside to carry to 

 the window, and two inside to pile up and block up, things 

 went merrily. 



To help matters, as the temperature rose slightly out- 

 side, a cool breeze from just the right direction kept the 

 cellar cool. The bees came from an outside temperature 

 just too cool for flying, into a cooler cellar air. This lower- 

 ing of temperature was just the thing to keep the bees 

 quiet, although even then they were lively enough before 

 the cellar was full. That job was done in about 3 hours, 

 and we voted the window better than a stairway. 



Cellar No. 3, about 7 miles further on, had a regular 

 maze of doors and passages through which the bees had to 

 be carried. We could not use the window, as it was too 

 small. It meant hard lug, lug, and stooping to preserve 

 brains from joist all too low for such prominent Canadian 

 bee-keepers ! 



However, we finished there in time to get a start at the 

 next cellar, 3 miles further on, before noon Wednesday. 



By that time the bees were flying just a little, so we waited 

 till 2 o'clock, then went at them. The weather was not 

 ideal — too warm ; but that is one of the disadvantages of 

 managing several apiaries. Things must be done when the 

 time comes, with much less regard to weather conditions 

 than the small bee-keeper can observe. To make matters 

 worse, the help we were counting on failed, and one man 

 alone in the cellar found it pretty heavy v-ork handling 

 those 12-frame Langstroth hives with a rousing, strong col- 

 ony of bees in each. 



That night we drove 9 miles to a sleeping place, and S 

 miles the next morning to the last cellar, almost in sight of 

 Lake Erie. A drier cellar you neversaw. It is in the buck- 

 wheat country, where there is sand clear to the bottom of 

 things. Hives can sit flat on the ground, and when you 

 pick them up the sand is dry underneath. The cellar-floor 

 is perfectly dry sand. 



By 4 o'clock Thursday we had finished the job. Next 

 day it rained all forenoon and we were glad the bees were 

 in. Six hundred colonies put into 5 cellars, and more than 

 40 miles of bad roads covered between Monday noon and 

 Thursday, 4 p.m., we considered not bad work. 



Hints for Beginners 



In bee-keeping there is ever going on the great battle of 

 the survival of the fittest. There is perhaps in no other 

 branch of agriculture, to the same extent, the dropping out 

 of some, and fresh members being drawn in, as there is in 

 bee-keeping. There is still too common the impression 

 that bees look after themselves, and too little is being done 

 to check that impression. Until this is done there must be 

 the constant change of bee-keepers and great loss to indi- 

 viduals and the community at large, and we are also bound 

 to have inferior goods put upon the market to the injury of 

 that market. Let me, however, say that the excellence of 

 product is not gauged by the number of colonies a bee- 

 keeper keeps. 



Every beekeeper is interested in the safe wintering of 

 bees, for to-day we do not know where foul brood exists, 

 and there is a particularly dangerous time in the spring. 

 Colonies may have perished, which, unnoticed by their 

 owner or any one else, are robbed out by strong colonies in 

 the neighborhood. These hives may contain foul brood, 

 and the honey robbed will be sure to be fed to the larvje in 

 the robbing colony, and the disease spread. We are then 

 interested in our neighbor, and that neighbor may be a 

 long distance from us. 



I am not opposed to more bee-keepers, but I want them 

 to realize before they enter into this branch of apiculture 

 that it is a business, and should be pursued in businesslike 

 ways. It would, in my estimation, also be better to direct 

 our attention more to reaching out to secure better markets, 

 to educating the people to know the difference between good 

 and inferior honey, and to educating all in the direction of 

 producing a better and more uniform article. This un- 

 doubtedly can be done, as it undoubtedly has not been done 

 in the past to any great extent. — R. F. Holtermann, in the 

 Canadian Bee Journal. 



Doctor ZTtillcr's 

 Question = ^ox 



=j 



Send questions either to the office of the American Bee .Journal, 



or to Db. C. C. Miller, Marengo, 111. 



B^" Dr. Miller does nut answer Questions by mail. 



Keeping Combs Until Next Season- Finding Queens and 

 Reqeeening 



1. I have had bad luck with my bees. The moths got 

 in and killed 2 of the colonies. I don't think they would 

 have gotten in if it had not been for the bees having paraly- 

 sis. I have only one colony left, but I expect to get some 

 Italian bees next spring. If I get a full colony the hive 

 they come in would be all right. But what I want to know 

 is, how can I fix the hives and frames that the bees died on 

 so as to save them to put more bees in next summer. I have 

 3 hives with frames, atid would like to fix them so they will 

 do to put more bees in. 



