American ^ee Journal 



May 23, 1907 



bees shall fail to carry out the lastructions of 

 the State Entomologist, as set forth in Sec- 

 tions 1 and 2 of this Act, the State Entomolo- 

 gist shall carry out such instruction or treat- 

 ment, and shall present to the owner of said 

 bees a bill for the actual cost of such de- 

 struction or treatment. In the failure of the 

 owner or possessor of such bees to pay said 

 bill within thirty days after the delivery of 

 same to himself, tenant or agent, or within 

 thirty days after mailing same to his usual 

 postofhce address, the State Entomologist 

 shall certify to the County Attorney of the 

 county wherein such bees are located, the 

 amount and items of said bill, and the County 

 Attorney shall file suit for the recovery of 

 said account. All moneys recovered by the 

 County Attorney for such destruction or 

 treatment shall be paid into the hands of the 

 County Treasurer, to become a part of the 

 fund for the carrying out of the provisions of 

 this Act. 



Sec. 4. — If any owner or keeper of any dis- 

 eased colonies of bees shall barter or give 

 away any infected bees, honey or appliances, 

 or shall expose any other bees to the danger 

 of infection of the disease, or shall refuse or 

 neglect to make report as provided in Section 

 1 of this Act, he shall be deemed guilty of a 

 misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, 

 shall be fined in any sum not exceeding two 

 hundred dollars. 



Sec. 5. — The fact that the season when 

 young colonies of bees will leave the mother 

 colonies is near at hand, that there is no ex- 

 isting law properly governing colonies affected 

 with foul brood, create an emergency and an 

 imperative public necessity, requiring the sus- 

 pension of the constitutional rule which re- 

 quires bills to be read on three several days, 

 and the same is so suspended, and this Act 

 shall lake effect and be in force from and 

 after its passage; and it is so enacted. 



9\ 



ISc^Qdom 



^<ij 



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Conducted by J. L. Bteb, Mount Joy, Ont. 



Coldest April on Record 



The first pollen was gathered here 

 on April 28. By all odds one of the 

 coldest Aprils on record has just dravfn 

 to a close. Bees, as a consequence, are 

 very backward, but as all honey and 

 pollen bearing flora are also late to a 

 certain degree, conditions may be 

 somewhat equalized. A heavy rain 

 followed by somewhat milder weather 

 has improved the clover somewhat, but 

 quite a large percentage of the alsike, 

 and most of the red clover, has been 

 damaged so much by " heaving " that 

 the farmers have to plow it under. 



Tarred-Paper for Hive-Protec- 

 tion in Spring 



till fruit-bloom, I have been able to try 

 the paper only on a limited scale ; but 

 the results from said trials were not a 

 " howling success " with me, and, per- 

 sonally, unless hives were very open 

 at the joints, I would not be bothered 

 with the paper at all. Hives that are 

 fairly well made, entrance contracted, 

 and a tray over the iop of the hive 

 filled with some dry material that fits 

 snugly on the frames are, in my esti- 

 mation, of far more value than paper. 

 One objection I found in regard to 

 the paper, was that hives so wrapped 

 would warm up too much during early 

 spring days when the sun was shin- 

 ing ; but with cold wind blowing, as a 

 result the bees would be coming out of 

 these hives when other colonies were 

 quiet. 



As mentioned on page 369, Mr. 

 Hutchinson and others are quite en- 

 thusiastic over the use of tarred-paper 

 for spring protection of the bees. 

 Naturally when a man like N. E. 

 France makes such sweeping asser- 

 tions as claiming that bees so pro- 

 tected will have double the brood of 

 unprotected colonies, many amateurs, 

 as well as "old-timers," will be giving 

 the plan a trial this spring. I venture 

 to predict that the large majority of 

 these experimenters will come to the 

 conclusion that more is claimed for the 

 plan than it is entitled to. 



With all due respect for Mr. France 

 and other advocates of tarred-paper, I 

 feel pretty sure that, other conditions 

 being equal, in order to get double the 

 brood in one hive of what there is in 

 another, some more factors than simply 

 tarred-paper will have to be taken into 

 consideration. As the most of my 

 hives are packed on the summer stands 



Colonies "Swarming- Out' 

 Early Spring 



in 



The bees came out of 3 hives to day, acting 

 as if they wanted to swarm. xVfter flying a 

 little they returned to their hives. What is 

 the cause of such a performance at this sea- 

 son of the year, in Canada? 



Elgin, Ont. H. S. Davison. 



Unfortunately quite a number of 

 bee-keepers have had some of this 

 " swarming " during the present back- 

 ward season. When hees swar»i out of 

 the hives in the early spring, there is 

 something not right, yet the reason is 

 not always easy to find out. One of 

 the commonest causes is starvation, 

 and when stores are all consumed and 

 a warm day comes, if the bees have 

 not perished they are very apt to leave 

 the hives — indeed, they will do this 

 during the summer time, too. Some- 

 times weak colonies affected with dys- 

 entery will act the same way, and occa- 



sionally a colony, seemingly in normal 

 condition, will leave the hive. 



Since I have been keeping bees only 

 twice have I had these unseasonable 

 "swarms." Six years ago, during a 

 very warm day near the last of April, 

 a strong colony left the hive and set- 

 tled on the limb of a small cedar-tree 

 in the yard. On examination the hive 

 was found to be sweet and clean, with 

 abundance of honey and pollen, and 

 brood in all stages. What induced 

 them to leave I know not, but the bees, 

 on being returned, remained there and 

 gave a good account of themselves that 

 season. 



My second case occurred only a few 

 days ago, but this time there was a 

 reason, as the colony was very weak, 

 having suffered with dysentery, and 

 spring dwindled badly. They settled 

 on the corner of a hive in a small clus- 

 ter ; the queen, being clipped, was lost 

 in the grass, and the bees scattered 

 and went into other hives. 



Reports of "swarming out " in the 

 early spring are always more plentiful 

 after a severe winter, and, as a rule, 

 there is feiore of it with bees wintered 

 in the cellar than among those win- 

 tered outdoors. I remember, some 

 years ago, of a bee-keeper who lives 

 so.me distance from here, who had a 

 lot of this trouble the day he put his 

 bees out of the cellar. Some 90 colo- 

 nies were put on the stands, and inside 

 of an hour over 20 had swarmed out. 

 To say there was a " mix-up " would 

 be putting it mildly. A number of 

 queens were killed, and over a dozen 

 colonies were lost. As the bees seemed 

 to be in fair condition, just why they 

 acted so is hard to say, and, fortu- 

 nately, an occurrence of this kind is 

 not very frequent. 



Bees Enticed Out in Cold Spring 

 Weather 



speaking of bees being enticed out 

 of the hives by the sun on cool, windy 

 days, reminds me of what Mr. J. F. 

 Davison was telling me a few days 

 ago. Mr. Davison is one of our promi- 

 nent comb-honey men, and has an api- 

 ary of 175 colonies, of which 80 were 

 wintered in the cellar and the balance 

 outdoors. While walking through his 

 yard last week, he called ray attention 

 to the fact that when he put out his 

 cellar-wintered bees, half of them were 

 put with entrances facing south, and 

 the other Half facing north. Without 

 exception the colonies facing north are 

 at this date much stronger than those 

 facing south. Mr. Davison has ex- 

 perimented along this line before, and 

 results have always favored the ones 

 facing north. 



The day I visited him the sun was 

 shining brightly, but the wind was 

 blowing cold from the north — in fact, 

 it was a typical " dwindler," and it was 

 quite noticeable that while the bees in 

 iiives facing south were flying quite 

 freely, in the hives facing north 

 scarcely a bee was moving. 



Mr. Davison is so thoroughly con- 

 vinced that, for early spring, hives are 

 better faced north, that, in the future, 

 if I mistake not, he will place all that 

 way when taken from the cellar. It is 



