May 1, 191(1 



Mention is made on page 1040 of the 

 plant called " Devil's paint-brush," or 

 '' orange hawkweed." Judging by what I 

 have seen of this pest when we had an 

 apiary near Biockville, Ont., I do not won- 

 der that they have coupled the ordinary 

 title of his Satanic majesty lo this plant. 

 Out there the soil is of a thin limestone 

 formation with much of the land being left 

 for pasture; in fact, much of it is good for 

 nothing else. Well, this " paint-brush " is 

 rapidly crowding out all other vegetation 

 on hundreds of acres, and it is literally 

 good for nothing, as stock will not touch it, 

 and the bees seldom touch it at all — only a 

 very few being noticed on bloom, and they 

 were after pollen. If it yields honey in the 

 locality mentioned by C, L. Williams, I am 

 very much surprised. 



* * * 



As to clipping queens, page 90, Jan. 15, 

 personally I either want both wings off at 

 one side or else all wings quite closely 

 cropped straight across. The reason? Just 

 because such a queen is more conspicuous, 

 and a single glance, even in a hurry, no 

 matter where the queen is, will tell you that 

 she is clipped. The old argument about 

 clipping one wing first year, another the 

 second, and so on, is out of date, because 

 we do not want to keep queens that long if 

 we can help it. In clipping this spring, if 

 a young queen is found she will be clipped 

 and the hive thus marked. Should I find 

 the queen is already clipped, the colony is 

 marked " old queen," and if things go as I 

 desire during the season, an effort will be 

 made to requeen that colony before fall. 

 That's all the record I need of a queen's age. 



» * * 



"If you were starting an outyard of 100 

 colonies how close would you go to a neigh- 

 bor who had about, the same number of 

 bees, and still expect him to be your neigh- 

 bor?" This is the quei'y asked in the 

 March Canadian Beekeeper, and answered 

 by J. A. McKinnon as follows : " If I were 

 starting an outyard I should not want to 

 liave that number of colonies any closer 

 than three miles. I think five miles would 

 be better." There may be some exceptional 

 cases to which the above advice might not 

 apply ; but in the main most of us will, 

 from a common-sense standpoint, and a 

 common-justice standpoint, most sincerely 

 agree with Mr. McKinnon. Please note 

 that he is considering himself primarily 

 in so advising, and the other fellow sim]ily 

 as a secondary matter. But see here, friend 

 McKinnon ; 1 warn you that you are step- 

 ping on a number of people's toes pretty 

 firmly by saying what you have. To the 



^49 



best of my knowledge, I am not personally 

 hit ; but that may be solely because of self- 

 ish views; for I well know that, if 1 put a 

 large apiary right up near another large 

 apiary, I shall suffer just as much as the 

 man already established. There is not now, 

 nor do I expect there ever will be, a law on 

 this continent defining just where a man 

 may put an ai3iary; and so it is one thing 

 to be thankful for in this matter under dis- 

 cussion that one cannot injure another 

 without at same time suffering loss himself. 

 * * * 



Undoubtedly sweet clover yields some 

 honey ; in fact, we secured some last year 

 at our Markham yard. But, enthusiastic as 

 I am on bee matters, I have not yet got 

 where I can conscientiously recommend 

 farmers to grow the plant, especially on 

 strong rich clay soils where other hay is 

 grown. Mr. Linton, of Aurora, Ont., gave 

 an instructive paper on sweet-clover grow- 

 ing at one of our conventions, and he has 

 unquestionably made a success of it. But 

 his farm, I understand, is hilly, and soil 

 rather light — in fact, not adapted to gi"ow- 

 ing timothy and clover. He admitted, in 

 the discussion that foUowed his paper, that 

 growing timothy hay and sweet clover on 

 the same farm would not work. 



From an experience on our own place — 

 at least the place we formerly owned — I can 

 well understand the reason. Probably forty 

 years ago my grandfather, who was an en- 

 thusiastic beekeeper, sowed a field of white 

 sweet clover and allowed it to go to seed. 

 Every time that field has been seeded to 

 timothy or red clover since then, we have 

 been reminded of the fact. The soil is a 

 very strong clay loam with claj' subsoil, and, 

 no matter Jiow well it has been looked after, 

 some seed seems to survive and show up 

 from year to year. Sweet clover is all right 

 for hay ; but mixed in with timothy it is 

 worse than useless, as the timothy has to be 

 left so long that, by the time it is ready to 

 cut, the sweet clover is about as good as 

 sticks so far as hay is concerned, and some 

 of it is ripe, leaving seed in the ground. 



Another matter that has made Ontario 

 beekeepers slow to boom the plant- for honey 

 production is that the honey from this 

 source is undoubtedly very much inferior 

 to that from alsike or white clover. In 

 some cases, especially in Kent and other 

 western counties, well-known producers 

 lia\-e told me that they wished there was 

 not a stalk of it within their reach. This 

 is no knock on sweet clover, for I believe 

 it has a future on the farms, especially on 

 light, hilly, or worn-out locations; but it 

 is well to look at these questions from dif- 

 fei'ent view-points. 



