AUGUST 1. 1914' 



out near the foot-hills away from the or- 

 chards to prevent the loss. 



June 14 Mr. W. A. Cheek, of Merino, 

 Logan County, Colorado, in the South Platte 

 Valley, says : " I do not think we shall have 

 much honey here to market this year. Bees 

 are in fine condition ; but the high water has 

 killed out the sweet clover on the river bot- 

 tom, and the farmers are cutting the alfalfa 

 before it blossoms. The first crop is mostly 

 up." 



June 1 Mr. S. C. Wood, of Rocky Ford, 

 wrote : " We are having very bad honey 

 weather. A severe hailstorm struck in on 

 the river below Fowler, reaching to La Jun- 

 ta, destroying a good deal of our vine 

 crops." 



June 3 Mr. W. C. Evans, Fort Collins, 

 Colorado, wrote : " Prospects for honey in 

 the north end of Larimer County are not 

 good. Best that we can hope for is prob- 

 ably half a crop." June 30 Mr. Evans wrote 

 that bees in Larimer County were barely 

 more than making a living. 



July 6 Pres. N. L. Henthorne, of The 

 Colorado State Beekeepers' Association, 

 wrote me from Platteville, Weld County, 



that bees were doing notliing there. " An 

 east wind is blowing, and no honey to speak 

 of." 



June 10 Mr. Wm. Harkleroad wrote me 

 from Grand Junction that bees were dying 

 by the quart in some apiaries, presumably 

 from spray poisoning. 



June 2 Mr. George D. Taylor, Cortez, 

 Colorado (Montezuma Valley), said that 

 bees were doing finely. 



From all these reports it may be gathered 

 that the crop of honey will be seriously 

 lessened in some districts, local in extent. 

 Taking Colorado as a whole, there should be 

 a fair crop of honey if present favorable 

 conditions prevail. There will likely be more 

 hailstorms, ravages of the army-worm, bees 

 killed by spray poisoning, etc., but the hon- 

 ey crop should be considerable, and it gives 

 every promise of being of high quality. 



I have not mentioned the poisoning of 

 bees by smelter smoke near Denver because 

 that was reported in Gleanings for June 15. 



The poor prospects in Larimer County, or 

 at least parts of it, are due to a very de- 

 structive hailstorm several weeks ago. 



Boulder, Colo. 



ONTARIO CROP WILL AVERAGE ABOUT 30 POUNDS PER COLONY 



BY R. F. HOLTERMANN 



The bees throughout southwestern On- 

 tario went into winter quarters last year 

 (1913) in about as fine condition as possible. 

 There were plenty of young bees. Owing 

 to the prolonged flow from red clover they 

 had an unusual amount of good stores, and 

 every thing seemed favorable. The early 

 winter was mild, followed by a fairly severe 

 season of weather; but the bees came 

 through the winter in excellent condition, 

 and I had a large percentage of colonies 

 covering fairly well twelve Langstroth 

 frames. 



As to clover, the old fields had been pretty 

 well winter-killed ; but the young clover was 

 in good condition, and we had a fairly plen- 

 tiful amount. Eastern Ontario, owing to the 

 dry summer of 1913, was in none too good 

 condition, yet a fairly wet fall had brought 

 white clover on nicely. The honey-produc- 

 ing section of Quebec province was also well 

 supplied with clover. 



This was the first spring for many years 

 in which I did no stimulative feeding. We 

 had so much honey in the hives that, by 

 changing a few combs about, all we needed 

 to do was to bruise cappings on honey al- 

 ready in the hive. 



Notes in my diary show that bees were 

 working well on willow and soft maple April 



18; drones were seen (I do not know how 

 long they had been in the hives) April 27. 

 Queen-clipping began on May 2; supering 

 began May 7, and a very large percentage 

 of the bees were supered before clover open- 

 ed. Dandelion came into bloom May 6; 

 golden willow and hard maple were in 

 bloom May 9; wild cherry. May 10; fruit 

 bloom, cherry and plum, opened May 17. 

 We began unpacking bees May 19. Apple 

 bloom opened May 21 (it is usually over by 

 May 24). The first clover honey was noticed 

 in the combs June 6. 



So far every thing was fairly well, only 

 we had had a wet cold spring in this section, 

 with an unusual number of frosts ; and such 

 a spring is sometimes followed by a dry, 

 cold, early summer. The honey record will 

 show the yields. They speak plainly. The 

 day the colony gained 14 lbs. it really gained 

 17 lbs. from 8 A. M. (before any bees were 

 out) until 8 P. M. 



The yield that day shows that there were 

 enough blossoms to give honey, that the soil 

 conditions were right, and all that was need- 

 ed was a certain atmospheric condition. 

 There were three supers put on the scale at 

 the time of first weighing — two above the 

 quilt, one below. The object of this was not 

 to disturb the gross weight of supers requir- 



