I70 



American Hae Journal j 



May, 1909. 



Conducted bv J. L. BYER. Mount Joy, Ont. 



Spring Feeding of Bees. 



As has already been mentioned, near- 

 ly all reports received as to how the 

 bees have wintered are favorable. How- 

 ever, a number report that the bees 

 are short of stores, and that it is neces- 

 sary for some feeding to be done. In 

 a cold April like the present, a mat- 

 ter of feeding bees is not one of the 

 most pleasant things to contemplate, 

 and as I have "been there" in past 

 years, those who have to feed now 

 have my sympathy. 



Last fall my bees went into winter 

 quarters very heavy, and one source of 

 comfort during this backward weather, 

 has been the knowledge that the bees 

 are still heavy with stores and in no 

 danger of starvation for some time, 

 even if nothing should come in from 

 the fields. Of the 35 colonies that 

 were wintered in the cellar, two were 

 marked light when they were put out, 

 but they have sufficient till May ist, 

 anyway. Of the bees outside, not a 

 single hive has been opened as yet, save 

 the queenless colony mentioned, as 

 well as the small nucleus from which 

 a queen was taken. With us there has 

 really not been a single day fit to ex- 

 pose the brood-nest, as yet this spring. 

 With abundance of stores, there is real- 

 ly nothing to be gained, and possibly a 

 lot to be lost by these early manipula- 

 tions, anyway. 



Morley Pettit — Ontario Provincial 

 Apiarist. 



As will be noticed in the April 

 American Bee Journal, the official no- 

 tice of Mr. Pettit's appointment was 

 made after I had sent away copy for 

 the April issue. I do not think that I 

 can add anything more to what the Edi- 

 tor has said, save to endorse his state- 

 ments heartily. No question but that 

 Mr. Pettit is thoroughly qualified for 

 the position, and, in common with many 

 others, the writer of these notes says 

 most heartily, "Here's wishing you all 

 success in your new sphere of labor, 

 Morley." 



I might, however, add the following 

 from Gleanings in Bee Culture for 

 April IS, written by R. F. Holtermann: 



Mr. Morley Pettit, of Nixon, Ontario, well 

 known to the bee-keeping fraternity, will be 

 Provincial Apiarist, having charge of the ex- 

 perimental apiary at Jordan Harbor; he will 

 be the lecturer at the Ontario Agricultural 

 College, Guelph, and inspector of apiaries in 

 5 counties. 



Mr. Pettit is the youngest son of S. T. 

 Pettit, formerly of Belmont, now living re- 

 tired at Aylmer West, Ont. Mr. S. T. 

 Pettit's apicultural activities were mostly car- 

 ried on from Belmont, Ont., and he will 

 be best remembered in connection with that 

 address. Morley Pettit will probably hold 

 the record as to a season's profits from an 



apiary, having cleared some $1,200 from 69 

 colonies in one year. He has, therefore, had 

 good apicultural training in his boyhood. He 

 has a first-class certificate as a schoolteacher, 

 and an extensive experience as a bee-keeper 

 himself, all of which, focused upon the work 

 in which he is now to engage, should bring 

 to the apicultural world something worth 

 knowing. It is to be hoped (and I believe 

 it will be the case) that the Ontario govern- 

 ment will not be slack or slow in supplying 

 needed equipment. 



The Hon. Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Duff, 

 represents Simcoe County in the Legislature. 

 This is a county of great apicultural activity, 

 having in it men of progressive ideas. In 

 our gratitude to Mr. Duff, and in hopefully 

 looking forward to the future, it will do 

 no one an injustice to state that the decision 

 to establish the Jordan Apicultural Station 



Morley Pettit. 



was one of he last acts of the Hon. Nelson 

 Monteith, and bee-keepers will not be likely 

 to forget that in this act, in the providing 

 of lecturers at county meetings, and in an 

 increase from $600 to $2500 for the stamping 

 out of foul brood, Mr. Monteith has broken 

 away from a rut into which Ontario apicul- 

 ture had fallen. The grant for the year is 

 $2500. 



Ontario Inspector of Apiaries. 



The Ontario Department of Agricul- 

 ture has this year appointed 14 Inspec- 

 tors of Apiaries, so there should be no 

 complaint on the part of any bee-keeper 

 this season in not being able to secure 

 the services of an inspector, should they 

 be required. A full list of the inspec- 

 tors, with their post-office addresses, 

 and list of Counties allotted to each, 

 are here appended : 



1. J. S. Schrank, Port Elgin, Ont. — coun- 

 ties of Bruce and Huron. 



2. D. Chalmers, Pool, Ont.— Perth and 

 Waterloo. 



3. W. A. Chrysler, Chatham, Ont— Lamb- 

 ton, Kent, Essex. 



4. John Newton, Thamesford, Ont. — Middle- 

 sex, Elgin. 



5. James Armstrong, Cheapside — North and 

 South Norfolk, North and South Oxford. 



6. Jacob Alpaugh, Eden, Ont. — Wellington, 

 Grey. 



7. H. G. Sibbald, Claude, Ont.— Simcoe, 

 Dufferin, Peel. 



8. Morley Pettit, Nixon, Ont.- — Brant, Went- 

 worth, Halton, Haldemand, Lincoln, Welland. 



9. J. L. Byer, Mt. Joy, Ont.— Ontario, York, 

 Victoria, Durham. 



10. Warrington Scott, Wooler, Ont. — Peter- 

 boro, Northumberland, Hastings, Prince Ed- 

 ward. 



11. A. A. Ferrier, Renfrew, Ont. — Renfrew, 

 Lanark, Carleton. 



12. D. L. McNaughton, St. Raphael, West, 

 Ont.- — Russel, Prescott, Glengarry. 



13. M. B. Holmes, Athens, Ont. — Lenox, 

 Addington, Frontenac, Leeds. 



14. Homer Burke, Highland Creek, Ont. — 

 Granville, Dundas, Cornwall. 



Peculiar Winter for Bees. 



A peculiar winter has just come to a 

 close. Warmer than the average as in 

 most other sections, yet in our locality 

 there was not a single day that the bees 

 could take a cleansing flight, between 

 Nov. 25th and April ist. Many a time 

 the bees would be thoroughly aroused, 

 and indications would be fine for a 

 flight, but in every case, fog or clouds 

 would come along and prevent the bees 

 from getting out. As the bees were 

 pretty much on buckwheat stores, I was 

 a bit uneasy as to the outcome, but 

 when the flight finally came on April 

 1st, the bees responded in good shape, 

 and I believe we can report successful 

 wintering for this year. 



Reports received from a number of 

 apiarists in different parts of the Prov- 

 ince are uniformly good, with the one 

 single exception of the case mentioned 

 in a former issue, where a bee-keeper 

 reported disaster from honey-dew in 

 the hives. March and April have been 

 very cool and windy, and with us pollen 

 came in only one day, and then in very 

 limited quantities — this on April i8th. 

 The weather has been so cool that very 

 few bees have been enticed from the 

 hives, and this has been better for them, 

 no doubt, than if there had been more 

 warm, sunny days with cold winds ; as 

 this latter condition is worse for spring 

 dwindling than any other kind of 

 weather combination. 



Dairying and White Clover. 



The word, "locality" is no doubt of- 

 ten abused and made to cover up some- 

 thing when a legitimate argument has 

 failed in its purpose, yet there is no 

 question but that the same word has a 

 lot to do with the differences in man- 

 agement and other things pertaining to 

 apiculture. For instance, only lately 

 Dr. Miller mentioned the fact of the 

 people in his section of country going 

 heavier into dairying each year, and he 

 stated that this meant an increased 

 acreage of white clover each year. Here 

 the people are going into more dairy- 

 ing each year, too, but in our case it 

 means less white clover each year in- 

 stead of more. Why this difference? 



Well, as I understand the matter, in 

 Dr. Miller's case the people depend 

 more upon pasturage for their herds, 

 while here the soiling system in more 

 in vogue. That is, instead of having a 



