November, 1917 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



871 



such be will be in active cbarge on the 

 foul-brood-eradieation work in this state. 

 Mr. Jackson comes from the Oklahoma Ex- 

 periment Station, where he has been em- 

 ployed for two years. In addition to his 

 excellent training Mr. Jackson has had 

 several years of experienos in practical api- 

 culture, having operated his own apiaries, 

 and later having had charge of the largest 

 apiary in Oklahoma. He will devote his 

 entire time to the foul-brood work in Texas, 

 a part of the general plan of increasing 

 the efficiency of the servioe^, as provided for 

 by the last Legislature. It is felt that 

 much good will come from the closer con- 

 tact of the State Entomologist's office with 

 the beekeepers of the state as a result of 

 this work. Many n.ew counties will be or- 

 ganized under his direction for the fight 

 against foul brood. 



ORGANIZED EFFORT AGAINST BOX HIVES. 



The Anderson County Beekeepers' As- 

 sociation is again doing things. There 

 have been a great many box hives in tha 

 county, and the association is doing every- 

 thing possible to correct this evil. Last 



month the olfioers of tlie a-^sociation pre- 

 vailed upon fifty of these box-hive bee- 

 keepers to transfer and put new cjUDens in 

 their hives. The 50-queen order was placed 

 with a queen-breeder in an adjoining coun- 

 ty, who agreed to deliver them in person, 

 and to introduce them without extra charge. 

 Receiving such a large order, and from an 

 association, the queen-breeder was more 

 than willing to render extra service. Every 

 one connected with this transaction was 

 very well pleased. To indicate this the 

 association started at once to get enough 

 more box-hive beekeepers interested so as 

 to be able to place another large order for 

 queens. The result was that in a short time 

 they were able to send off a second order, 

 this time for 87 queens. Having given 

 satisfaction with the first order the same 

 queen-breeder was selected to fill the second 

 one. On this second order he used the same 

 care, personally introducing each queen. 

 As a result of these efforts on the part of 

 the county association, gi'eat strides have 

 been made toward putting the beekeeping 

 industry of the county on a high level. 



NOTES FROM CANADA 



}. L. Byer, Markham, Ont. 



TODAY, Oct. 

 11, we have 

 just finish- 

 ed doing Avhat 

 feeding we thought necessar3^ Generally 

 speaking, the brood-nests were lighter than 

 we anticipated earlier in the season, ow- 

 ing, no doubt, to the failure of buckwheat 

 to yield nectar during the last half of Au- 

 gust, on account of unusually cool weather 

 at that period. Brood - rearing always 

 slackens late in August; and with a buck- 

 wheat flow later on, much honey is stored 

 where space was formerly occujDied with 

 brood. Before the bulk of maturing brood 

 emerged this year the flow stopped, and 

 naturally an empty lot of comb was left in 

 the center of most hives. 



FEEDING SUGAR NOT TO BE CONDEMNED. 



A few of our leading lights, when refer- 

 • ring to the feeding of sugar, frequently in- 

 fer that such practice is very shady. Why 

 this should be the case is a mystery to me, 

 for in actual practice it is sometimes a 

 necessity to feed sugar or let the bees starve. 

 For instance, this season up at our north 

 apiaries the crop from clover was very light 

 and we had few perfect combs of honey to 

 save for feeding later on, even if such an 

 idea had been contemplated. What little 

 white honey was on the hives was extracted 

 at the close of the flow, and we expected 



from appear- 

 ances at that 

 time that suffi- 

 cient stores 

 would be gathered from fall flowers to suf- 

 fice for winter. But the expecfed flow 

 failed to materialize: and under such cir- 

 cumstances what should we do? What we 

 did do was to feed enough sugar sj^rup, 

 even if sugar did cost us $9.40 laid down at 

 the station near our yard, to make us feel 

 sure that every colony was in good condition 

 for winter. An average of 10 ponnds of 

 sugar was fed to each colony, some taking- 

 more and some less. 



At the five yards near home, quite a lot 

 of buckwheat honey was stored, altho the 

 surplus was much less than we expected 

 before extracting, as we found many colo- 

 nies with full top stories while the super 

 next to tlie brood-nest was almost empty. 

 Having quite a lot of fine combs sealed over 

 in supers, we saved a lot for feeding — about 

 600 — so as to avoid buying so much sugar. 

 An examination of brood-nests later showed 

 that things were much the same as at our 

 north yards — few colonies quite light, but 

 many in need of 10 or 15 pounds of stores. 

 We have just finished going thru those 

 brood-nests, hunting out the light combs 

 and substituting full oombs; and 'aftter 

 working in cool weather with crau-ling bees, 



