302 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



September 



Attractions of the Central Extracting Plant 



How one Ontario Beekeeper Handles the Output of Seven Yards with one 



Honey House and Outfit 



By Frank C. Pellett 



WHEN the writer started for 

 Ontario in June, he had vis- 

 ions of seeing a number of 

 Canada's most extensive honey pro- 

 ducers in action. The trip was to in- 

 clude a week at the short course at 

 Guelph and a week among the bee- 

 keepers. The visit was at an unfor- 

 tunate time as far as the weather was 

 concerned. The rain, itself, was for- 

 tunate, for the spring had been ratlier 

 dry and the prospect was not the 

 best. Coming as it did the heavy 

 rainfall insured a crop, and so, of 

 course, was very welcome. However, 

 there is little chance to see beekeep- 

 ing operations during a heavy down- 

 pour, and with one e.xception the 

 visits to e.xtensive honey producers 

 were either impossible or it rained 

 so hard that there was no chance to 

 visit the apiaries. 



The one exception was the visit to 

 the Pettit apiaries at Georgetown. 

 The day was fine and the bees were 

 working hard, so conditions could 

 hardly have been better in this case. 

 Mr. Pettit is too well known to re- 

 quire introduction. His work as 

 founder of the beekeeping depart- 

 ment of the Ontario College of -Agri- 

 culture has already introduced him to 

 every student of beekeeping. It is 

 now more than two years since he de- 

 cided to give up public work and de- 

 vote his entire attention to the Pet- 

 tit apiaries, which are operated in 

 partnership with his sister. The api- 

 aries were established several years 

 ago by Miss Pettit, while Mr. Pettit 

 was at the college. 



One thing which impressed the 

 writer was the great care they use in 

 selecting their combs. Any comb 

 which sags, has a considerable por- 

 tion of drone comb, or is irregular in 

 its shape is marked "No. 2" and dis- 

 carded at the first opportunity. No. 2 



The central plant. Mr. and Miss Pettit in foreground. 



combs are used in the extracting su- 

 pers until such times as they can be 

 spared. The ohoto herewith shows 

 that with properly wired combs there 

 is little sag, and it is possible to get 

 brood clear to the topbar. Most bee- 

 keepers appreciate the value of per- 

 fect combs, but too often few take 

 the trouble necessary to replace all 

 the defective ones. 



The Pettits seem to be willing to 

 "try anything once," to repeat a com- 

 mon e-xpression. One is impressed 

 with the number of experiments 

 which they must have tried in work- 

 ing out their present system of man- 

 agement. One apiary is in single 

 packing cases, another in quadruple 

 winter cases and at a third the bees 

 are wintered in cases holding eight 



Brood to tophar in-carefully wired cunili. 



colonies, etc. The winter problem 

 seems to be of little concern to them. 

 In spite of the extremely hard winter 

 of 1919-20 they wintered with very 

 little loss except in one apiary. Mr. 

 Pettit can only explain the loss in 

 this instance by the lack of proper air 

 drainage. 



They make a practice of wintering 

 on sugar syrup, owing to the uncer- 

 tainty of the quality of natural stores. 

 In Ontario the winters are long, and 

 there may be weeks of time when the 

 bees are unable to fly. Since all their 

 bees are wintered outside, it is im- 

 portant that the bees be provided 

 with the very best stores. Given an 

 abundance of sugar syrup, large clus- 

 ters of young bees and plenty of 

 packing, they find their bees to win- 

 ter almost perfectly. In fact, for sev- 

 eral years past they have packed the 

 bees in the fall and spent the winter 

 in Florida. 



The Pettits are enthusiastic about 

 the advantages of a central plant. As 

 will be seen by the illustration, the 

 building is large enough to house all 

 e(|uipinent necessary for the seven 

 yards. The loaded truck is driven 

 directly into the building, which is 

 bee tight, thus avoiding any annoy- 

 ance from robbers while being un- 

 loaded. 



Tliey contend that one fully equip- 

 ped building is more economical, as 

 well as more satisfactbry, than a 

 makeshift building at each yard. Few 

 beekeepers own the sites of their 

 outyards, and that being the case it 

 would hardly be wise, even though 

 the cost was not prohibitive, to erect 

 a well-equipped, permanent building 

 at each yard. Where the beekeeper 

 has no bniUlings it is a simple matter 



