246 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Notes from Canada 



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



Are you joking, Dr. Miller, when you say 

 tjiat " on this side it is a raiity for bees to 

 work on the second crop of red clover"? 

 page 125. Nothing rare about it here in 

 Ontario, as, on the conti'ary, it would be a 

 rare thing indeed to find a field of second- 

 crop red clover without some bees being on 

 the blossoms. But it i.s a rare thing to find 

 them doing enough to show any results in 

 the supers. Only two or three times since 

 I have been keeping bees has this happened. 



The March 1st issue is practically a '' city 

 number"," and this leads me to remark that 

 the average country beekeeper nas no iden 

 of the number of colonies kept in some oi 

 our large cities. Toronto, right near me, 

 with a population of over half a million, 

 has a great number of bees inside its limits, 

 as I learned when doing inspection work a 

 few years ago. From the standpoint of 

 disease, our city brethren have more to 

 contend with than we have, as there may be 

 bees within a short distance, and yet they 

 may know nothing about it. Tliis is not 

 insinuating that the city beekeeper is nec- 

 essarily not as well informed on the disease 

 question as his country brother, for, on the 

 contrary, I know many of them who are up 

 to date, and hustlers in every sense of the 

 word. But ove beekeeper exposing foul 

 brood in the city may do much more harm 

 than if he Avere in the country, for th*^ 

 simple reason that very few may know that 

 he has bees, and damage may be done to 

 neighboring apiaries while the proprietors 

 have no idea of the source of infection. 



Under date of Feb. 10 I wrote that winter 

 here in this part of Ontario had been above 

 the average in temperature. An old saying 

 is that " it is never safe to whistle till you 

 are out of the bush," and it holds good in 

 the present instance. Since that date we 

 have had a whole winteT''s cold in a month, 

 as for three weeks in February the weather 

 broke all records for our locality. At our 

 home here in York Co. the thermometer 

 said 30 below on two different occasions, 

 and for two weeks at a stretch it was never 

 above zero in the morning. At the yard 

 100 miles north of Toronto, wheie over 300 

 colonies are wintering outdoors, it was very 

 much colder than here in York Co. Three 

 days in sueeess'on it was 43, 37, and 33 



below respectively ; and for the whole month 

 of February only five mornings registered 

 above zero. Results there will answer the 

 many who live further north than I do. 

 who,' the past fall, asked me if 1 considered 

 wintering outdoors would be safe for them 

 to practice. No report has come from this 

 noitli yard for the past three weeks; but I 

 am not worrying nuich about the bees, for 

 all that ; for, notwithstanding the unusual 

 cold, I jm not expecting a heavy loss. The 

 bees up there had a partial flight Nov. 23. 

 and as it is cold to-day (March 9) it looks 

 as though they will have had a steady con- 

 finement of four months at least before 

 getting a chance to fly again. 



PAINTING PAYS. 



Regarding the matter of painting hives, 

 as discussed by friend Doolittle on p. 842, 

 Dec. 1, I might say that his claims as to 

 economy of painting being a " myth " don't 

 ajipeal to me a bit. I am not prepared to 

 argue the cjuestion from the sanitary stand- 

 point as applied to the health of the bees 

 in painted or unijainted hives; but, honest- 

 ly, 1 have no fear of the painted hives doing 

 my bees any injury. But as to paint being 

 a wood preservative, it seems absurd to me 

 to try to prove otherwise. The oil in the paint 

 is the main thing; and it takes little experi- 

 menting to prove that oil-soaked wood will 

 not soak up water like unpainted wood; 

 and moisture in the material is the main 

 cause of decay, as I understand the matter. 

 Great corporations like our big railway 

 companies, etc., certainly think that paint 

 Tjays from an economic standpoint; and 

 business interests of that nature seldom 

 make mistakes of that kind. While I have 

 a few hundred painted hives I also have a 

 few hundred unpainted ones, so the above 

 is written from an unbiased position. The 

 unpainted hives always give me a feeling of 

 reproach whenever 1 look at them, as I feel 

 they are not a paying proposition, to say 

 nothing of other disadvantages they may 

 have. We have double-walled hives sheeted 

 on the outside with half-inch stuff that were 

 made over 30 years ago. They were well 

 jiainted at that time by my grandfather, 

 and are to-day in fair condition. Others, 

 made about 1.5 years ago, and not painted, 

 have the sheeting all curled up and split at 

 the ends in many cases. Certainly painting 

 would have paid in this case. 



