1921 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



273 



laden with sulphur, on a west bound 

 freight train, jumped the tracks, 

 flopped over the side of the bridge 

 and found a resting place at the bot- 

 tom of the canyon 150 feet below. 

 This was bad enough, but the sulphur 

 caught fire, and then there was a 

 powerful odor for many miles round. 

 We had bo wait about ten hours until 

 the fire burned out. At dawn we 

 could see whjte smoke lazily hanging 

 in the air for many miles, just the 

 tips of the trees in the lower valley 

 showing above the haze. No human 

 beings lived there, as far as known, 

 and I feel certain no living thing 

 could survive that night. 



A late breakfast at Telkwa, then 

 about 11 o'clock I was in a motor car 

 for a 12 mile run to the nearest bee- 

 keeper. The town stands at the 

 junction of the Bulkley and Telkwa 

 Rivers, in the midst of wonderful 

 scenery. The valley, I fancy, is about 

 30 miles wide, dropping down by slow 

 degrees from snow-clad mountains 

 9,000 feet high. My route lay along 

 the banks lof the Telkwa. Sweeping 

 out of the town the car in a couple of 

 minutes landed me among the fire- 

 weed, and for 30 seconds I gazed at it 

 puzzled; there was something about 

 it very different from the fireweed I 

 knew in the Frazer Valley. The bloom 

 was all right, but sticking out con- 

 spicuously were thousands and thou- 

 snads of white crosses that had never 

 attracted my eye before. The car 

 was stopped and I grabbed a head. 

 The cross was merely the anthers, 

 big, fat, white, healthy, not like the 

 ones I knew, which were short, lean, 

 grey. What did this mean? Next, to 

 tear the bloom to pieces to see if it 

 contained nectar, an old trick of 

 mine. No need, just look at that 

 blob, a big drop of nectar caught at 

 the bottom of the stamens and pis- 

 tils; it must in itself be a load for a 

 bee. More blossoms were examined, 

 thousands of them, every one with a 

 cargo of nectar for a honeybee — and 

 not 'One in sight. Miles and miles, 

 and again miles of fireweed, tons and 

 tons of nectar available for the use 

 of man, but only one hive to gather 

 it, and it 50 miles from its nearest 

 neighbor. So for 12 miles I sat, ob- 

 served, and wondered if that region, 

 that day, were but specimens of other 

 regions and other days in the Grand 

 Trunk country of British Columbia. 

 Again and again I got out and ex- 

 amined the plants and the surround- 

 ings. Wild strawberries low down, 

 wild raspberries higher up, the fire- 

 weed above all, a solid mass in length, 

 width and depth of nectar-bearing 

 flowers, with no ferns to choke their 

 growth. The half had not been told 

 me by my son, who knows the region 

 well. 



At my journey's end I find the bee- 

 keeper and his hive, both towering 

 pretty high in the air. "How's the 

 crop-" "Well, I have taken ofif a hun- 

 dred pounds; want to taste it?" I 

 did, and did again. Fine, very fine; 

 could not be otherwise with so much 

 wild raspberry around. 

 "Now, go to the hive and say how 



much more I may take off." Three 

 stories of 10 frames each oi solid 

 honey, then one with 3 frames of 

 brood and 7 frames solid honey, a 

 total of 37 frames of homey. My 

 judgment was, take two supcrfulls, 

 leave the rest to the bees. 



He was selling his crop to neigh- 

 obrs at 40c a pound, the customer pro- 

 viding the container. Eighty dollars 

 for one hive. I asked him, "Do you 

 realize that 12 colonies will give you 

 a living?" "Sure, but the beggars will 

 not swarm; what am I going to do 

 about it? I ordered a queen weeks 

 ago, but she has not come yet." Two 

 seasons, no swarm; why? April and 

 May are unsettled months, then 

 comes the heat and the nectar, and 

 the bees are busy. 



I explored the country round as 

 far as a car would go, and saw hun- 

 dreds of square miles of raspberry 

 and fireweed. Then people said: 

 "this is nothing, you ought to see 

 so-and-so, the real stuff is there." 

 But good gracious, if last year and 

 this year are fair sam'ples of the Bulk- 

 ley Valley, every acre of fireweed is 

 worth $50 to $100 a y^ar and will pay 

 far better as it lies right now than it 

 will ever do under cultivation. 



Then to Terrace, where terraces 

 marking old beds of the Skeena 

 River, rise one behind another. It 

 brags about its fine strawberries, 

 best in the world. So I asked the 

 cook on the train where he bought 

 his supplies, leading deftly up to my 

 objective, which was strawt)erries. 

 These he bought in Terrace. Why- 

 Well, he thought I had never eaten a 

 really fine strawberry if I had not 

 eaten one grown in Terrace. 



I did not get around much from* the 

 town itself, so saw only a few square 

 miles of the country, and did not en- 

 thuse much over its honey possibili- 

 ties. But one nucleus I shipped up at 

 the end of May, consisting of 6 shal- 

 low frdnies of brood, had drawn out 

 16 ordinary and 16 shallow frames, 

 and filled them all with fine honey. I 

 gave the owner over 60 pounds, and 

 insisted that he leave /S in the hive. 

 His wife was eager to know what she 

 could sell it for, but the twinkle in 

 the eyes of half a dozen young folks 

 told me she would not sell a poowid. 

 A similar nucleus had been man- 

 aged by two different people, just as 

 they happened to come around, with 

 the result the queen got killed, and 

 one swarm had issued. Both were in 

 fine shape, but the honey on hand 

 was just a little more than sufficient 

 for winter stores. So probably I was 

 mistaken in my snap judgment of 

 Terrace. 



I left the valley with the feeling I 

 had seen a regiom that some day 

 will be the heaviest honey producer 

 of this continent, a district where a 

 man could put down all the hives he 

 could personally manage in one spot 

 and get a big crop from them all. I 

 also think it will be a land of simple 

 beekeeping, one where swarming will 

 be the e.xceptioS rather than the 

 rule. The thaw comes about the be- 

 ginning of April, but the sea.son does 



not warm up until towards May, 

 then by the time the warm weather 

 has developed in June, nectar is be- 

 ing freely secreted. 



The only meteorological records 

 available are those of 1919, and these 

 give a minimum temperature of 9 

 degrees below zero and a maximum 

 of 85 degrees above. The average 

 mean temperatures are, January, 27; 

 February, 23; March, 25; April, 40; 

 May, 47; June, S3 and July 57 degrees. 

 The rainfall is about 40 inches, well 

 distributed throughout the year — 

 about 2 inches each in June and 

 July, which accounts, probably, for 

 the fireweed's profuse secretion. 

 Snowfall is about 5 feet. 



East of Terrace the timber con- 

 sists mainly of jack pine, alder and 

 poplar. There are very few trees 

 with a bole of a foot in diameter, so 

 there is little likelihood of wild bees 

 in the timber. 



SAVE THE COMBS 

 By L. H. Cobb 



I have seen hives filled with built- 

 out combs left to the tender mex-cies 

 of the moths when the bees had died 

 in winter, and most of them were de- 

 stroyed before any use could be made 

 of them. Now in these combs the 

 beekeeper has a definite value, of 

 which regular beekeepers are well 

 aware, but which the amateurs and 

 the farm beekeepers have not con- 

 sidered. Building comb is a costly 

 process, and I have known times wher 

 a colony would give no surplus at all 

 if forced to build comb, when with 

 ready built comb there would be a 

 slow but gradual gain. On a very 

 slow flow, built-out combs in full 

 frames will get the honey if there is 

 any to be had. 



One young beekeeper, who had 

 gathered together fifteen or sixteen 

 colonies during two years, lost all but 

 six of them one bad winter. He took 

 the empty hives and stacked them 

 alongside the barn, and while I did 

 not investigate them, I know that 

 during that summer those combs were 

 ruined. Bees going into winter pro- 

 vide a supply of pollen for the young 

 in the spring, and this pollen attracts 

 the larvEe of the beemoth. With no 

 bees to keep them out, and no atten- 

 tion from the owner, they will tun- 

 nel every comb until it is ruined. 

 Even with bees in the hives they are 

 hard to keep under control — except 

 with pure Italians — and they work so 

 fast that it takes early and sure 

 work to prevent trouble. 



When it is discovered that the bees 

 are gone, it is a good idea to pile 

 the hive-bodies one on top of an- 

 other with the frames in them and 

 with a tight board bottom. Place an 

 empty super on top of the pile, and 

 on the frames of the upper hive set a 

 saucer with an ounce of bisulphide of 

 carbon in it, being very careful to 

 have no fire about. The gas will set- 

 tle down through the frames and kill 

 anything in the larva line, and then 

 you can set the hives so no moths can 

 enter and keep them away from 

 moths pretty securely, but it is best 



