April, 1917 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



287 



GLEANINGS FROM THE NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, AND WEST 



M 



ARCH 3. 

 — I have 



NOTES FROM CANADA 



just 1- e- 

 turned from 

 making a hasty visit to all five apiaries here 

 in the home district. The day was calm 

 and bright, but not nearly warm enough 

 for bees to fly. Bees were stirred up a 

 little on Dec. 8th last, if I remember cor- 

 rectly, and have been held in snug with the 

 cold ever since. 



Judging by external conditions, bees are 

 in fair shape altho signs of dysenteiy were 

 noticed in a few colonies in each yard. 

 Much depends on whether a good day comes 

 soon for bees to fly. With such a day in- 

 side of two or three weeks, prospects are 

 for fair wintering at least. 

 * ^ * 



While we have experienced winters with 

 more excessively cold days, for steady c(,ld 

 weather this winter promises to be a rec- 

 ord - breaker. Official temperatures for 

 Toronto for February, just past, give a 

 mean temperature for the month of 16. 3 

 degrees, which is 5.9 degrees below normal, 

 and the statement is further made that it 

 has been the coldest February in 25 years. 



A light snowfall has exposed hives to 

 the cold all winter, and at present, March 

 3, the fields have but a thin covering of 

 snow and ice. For the sake of the alsike 

 clover, a good snowfall that would lie still 

 and not get drifted into piles would be 

 welcomed. But March does not usually act 

 that way, for when it snows, generally it 

 blows as well. 



THE CROP committee's PRICES. 



On page 89 for February we are told 

 that some beekeepers in Ontario were 

 grumbling because our price or crop com- 

 mittee did not set higher prices this year. 

 No doubt about that at all, but as grum- 

 bling and fault - finding is a prerogative 

 common to all members of the genus homo, 

 of course certain beekeepers are not in any 

 way exempt. Dollars to doughnuts, tlie.se 

 same kirkers were the first ones to kick 

 in the fall of 19113 because they then said 

 that this same committee had recommended 

 loo high a price, and some even had the 

 audacity to claim that members of the 

 committee deliberately did this so that they 

 could unload early and let the rest suffei'. 

 It Ls always easy to be in the " I told you 

 class " after things have matured ; and if 

 prices rather slumped in the fall of 1913 

 and went the other way this last season, nat- 



}. L. Byer, Markham, Ont. 



u r a 1 1 y they 

 " knew how it 

 would go." The 

 worst feature in 

 coiniection with matters of this kind is that 

 such advice always comes when it is too 

 late to be of any use. ConstriKti\e criti- 

 cism is always in order, while destructive 

 criticism is worse than nothing. 



The crop committee, while it no doubt 

 has made mistakes, has after all been 

 the means of saving thousands of dollars 

 to the beekeepers, and the members of the 

 committee have worked for nothing and 

 boarded themselves— let us be decent with 

 them anyway. Needless to add, the writ- 

 er of these notes is not a member of this 

 committee nor associated with them in any 

 way aside from being a member in common 

 with the rest of them, of the 0. B. K. A. 

 ^ * * 



Alighting - boards or other projections 

 under the entrances of winter cases are an 

 abomination. A number of winter cases 

 purchased last fall have two - inch - wide 

 projections under the entrance hole, and 

 today, when visiting the apiary where these 

 cases are, Ave found half a dozen colonies 

 ■with the entrances pretty well clogged 

 with ice. A week or ten days ago we had 

 a heavy rain for an hour or more followed 

 by severe freezing weather — just the com- 

 bination to make trouble with cases having 

 projections as mentioned. Right in the 

 same yard under similar conditions in other 

 respects, not an entrance was bothered with 

 ice where the ease had a perfectly clear 

 front and nothing to catch falling water 

 under the entrance. Build winter cases 

 with no alighting - boards under the en- 

 trances; incline the cases on stands so that 

 they lean pretty well forward, and forget all 

 troubles as to entrances getting clogged 

 with ice. 



Honey is still in keen demand with little 

 to offer. Looks as tha next year's crop, if 

 we should have one, will come on a clear 

 market. The crop, in addition to being 

 heavy in quantity last year, was away above 

 the average in quality — the latter factor 

 was no doubt a strong feature in helping 

 to create the gi-eat demand that has ex- 

 isted for honey for the past few months. 

 » * * 



It gives us northern fellows quite a sliock 

 to read on p. 195, March issue, that North 

 Carolina expects a loss of 30 per cent of the 

 bees because of a hard winter. My father 



