Febkuarv, 1917 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



J. L. BYER, THE BEE MAN 



Ho^ Success has Come to a Man 



Without Capital hut ^ith oAhun- 



dant Energy and Enthusiasm 



By E. R. Root 



SOME little 

 time ago 

 the editor 



hap p e n e d to 



make some fa- 

 vorable comment 

 concerning o u r 

 special cor res- 

 pondent Mr. J. 

 L. Byer, of Markham, Ontario, Canada; of 

 how lie liad started in his apicultural career 

 from the bottom round of the ladder until 

 he was now one of the largest and best bee- 

 keepers in all of Canada; of how he had 

 raised a family, sending some of the older 

 children away to school. He came back 

 with a private letter saying that he did not 

 deserve the good things we had said of him ; 

 that his beeyards were not models of neat- 

 ness, and that he had all kinds of hives and 

 equipments; and he was afraid that after 

 the puff given him some of his fellow-coun- 

 trymen would call on him and go away feel- 

 ing disappointed. As to " having raised a 

 family," Mr. Byer said it was somewhat 

 of a joke, as he is still raising one, a pair of 

 lusty twins having come to his home about 

 six months before the time of our visit. 



This letter of protest about a heteroge- 

 neous lot of hives from our correspondent 

 made us all the more anxious to see the man 

 at his home and yards; and so, accordingly, 

 after a preliminary conference with the at- 

 torneys in the case of the beekeepers versus 

 the smelters at Thorold, Ontario, we took 

 occasion to run up to Mr. Byer's place. 

 We had given him no previous intimation 

 of our coming, and so we called him up 

 from Toronto on the long distance to see if 

 he were at home. " Sure enough, I knew 

 your voice," he said. He was surprised but 

 yet pleased to know that we were coming 

 up to see him. He met us at the train with 

 his Studebaker — a comparatively new ma- 

 cliine, and took us out to his home lickety- 

 splash, for the roads were wet and muddy. 



Mr. Byer is now living in a brand-new 

 house with all modern conveniences and 

 equipments. The bees, the automobile, the 

 home, were all paid for out of the proceeds 

 from his bees. Perhaps our correspondent, 

 will not thank us for saying this much; but 

 it is only fair to say that his beekeeping is 

 of a kind that spells success. 



When we expressed a desire to see his 

 beeyards he readily assented to taking us 

 out, but remarked that we would not find 

 t liings looldng as nice as at Medina. 



" Xever mind," we said. " You have ap- 

 parently made a success of the business." 



We went out to the Cashel yard, about 

 four miles away, and we found it, as Mr. 

 Byer had said, provided with hives of all 



107 



styles — some that 

 he had bought up 

 of beekeepers at 

 various times. 

 The frames at 

 each yard are all 

 of a size however. 

 While he endeav- 

 ors to keep each 

 equipment of a kind by itself, it was not 

 possible for him to do that in all eases. The 

 bees in this yard were packed in double- 

 walled hives, one colony to a hive. He ad- 

 mitted that the quadruple case for holding 

 four hives was all right, but it took a long 

 time to pack the bees in such cases, and he 

 rather preferred the individual double-wall- 

 ed hive and the two-hive winter case. Over 

 half of his bees are packed two in a ease. 



Fig. 1 shows the Byer hive that had 

 been made by his grandfather. Bees 

 wintered in them well, notwithstanding 

 there was only two inches of packing be- 

 tween the walls. He uses absorbents; and 

 in looking into some of the hives we found 

 the bees were in fine condition with an 

 abundance of stores. 



"But," we remai-ked, "don't you think 

 you would use less stores if you used more 

 packing?" 



"Perhaps," he replied. And then he 

 said he had about 25,000 pounds of nice 

 clover honey on the hives slightly 

 flavored wdth buckwheat for which he 

 could get 81/^ cents a pound. He admitted 

 that he might be able to save some of 

 this honey, but it would mean an entirely 

 new equipment and some extra labor in 

 packing and toting these big hives around 

 from yard to yai'd. He was not sure that 

 he would care to change. Mr. Sibbald, he 

 said, who was credited with being one of 

 the best beekeepers in all Ontario, was 

 using the Alpaugh-Holtermann winter case, 

 and liked it. 



The reader's attention is directed to the 

 style of cover, which is made of common 

 shingles and a % piece to make up the 

 ridge-board — very simple; see Fig. 1. Mr. 

 Byer is inclined to think that sheet metal 

 as shown in the foreground, Fig. 3, is 

 cheaper. 



The Cashel yard that we were visiting 

 was nearlv surrounded by a windbreak of 

 woods. A large amount of alsike is gi-own in 

 the territoi-y, and the location is ideal. 



In the afternoon we drove over to the 

 Markham yard, located on Rouge's Hill, a 

 little way outside of the towni itself. There 

 is hardly a prettier location in all Canada. 

 It is at this yard that Mr. Byer and his 

 friends sometimes hold picnics. 



Fig. 2 and 3 are general views of this 



