1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



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CANADA: ; \ 



R. F. HOLTERMANN 



Page 468, Nov. 22. 1906. Briiish Bee Jour- 

 nal states that the New Zealand government 

 has inti'oduced a bill, "The Apiaries Act, 

 1906." In addition to foul brood it seeks to 

 suppress bee-moths and any other diseases 

 or pests from time to time declared by the 

 Governor in council. This latter is a very 

 wise precaution, and enables immediate ac- 

 tion to be taken when new enemies appear. 



CANADIAN PROSPECTS. 



At this date of writing the outlook for a 

 Canadian crop of honey has much improved. 

 During the last three weeks we have had 

 warm and hot weathei* — much of it sultry. 

 Strong colonies have done well; and in this 

 section, at least, basswood-trees have an 

 abundance of buds. Many colonies have 

 perished; but the present outlook is decided- 

 ly favorable; however, no one can tell what 

 the future may bring forth. There has been 

 a great deal of swarming. 



STORES FOR BEES — WHEN TO SUPPLY THEM. 



W. Z. Hutchinson, Review, page 136, in 

 writing, rightly draws attention first to 

 food a colony needs for winter stores, then 

 refers to what many in discussion and prac- 

 tice ignore — the food needed for rearing bees 

 in the spring. With one apiary he rather 

 favors spring feeding; with several apiaries, 

 giving enough in the fall. This is generally 

 sound practice, but it is not always safe. I 

 favor and try to practice giving enough for 

 sj)ring use in the fall, and then spring feed- 

 ing in small quantities for stimulative pur- 

 poses. 



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MORE PROFITABLE BEES. 



Canadians have been looking with interest- 

 ed eyes to the United States to bring forward 

 or discover to civilization a better bee than 

 has been known to us, and now we are told 

 there is no result from that world-circling 

 trip made at the expense of the United States. 

 Bee-keepers of whatever nationality should 

 feel grateful to the United States for this ef- 

 fort, and somehow or another I have a hope 

 that this will not close the efforts of the 

 United States or some other country to en- 

 deavor to secure a more profitable bee for 

 the modern bee-keeper. Selection and breed- 

 ing can in any case be gone on with. 



QUEEN-CLIPPING. 



Page 685, Gleanings, Dr. Miller and E. 

 R. Root want to leave the wings on one side 

 of the queen, as they "want one pair of wings 

 by which we might pick her up." What a 



savage condition the fathers of bee-keeping 

 are in! I took Dr. Miller to be more gently 

 disposed, and when at Medina I did not no- 

 tice Ernest carrying the baby about by one 

 arm. Previous education and lack of thought 

 accounts for many of our actions. To take 

 the queen up by the thorax and hold her in 

 that way is a method much to bg preferred. 

 Propolize slightly the thumb and linger be- 

 fore beginning work; and if you scrape your 

 hives well when the season opens and pro- 

 polis is scarce, write to J. L. Byers for some 

 of his surplus. It was Wm. McEvoy who 

 taught me to clip the wings on both sides of 

 the queen, and he made no mistake. 



nectar secretion. 

 On page 394, Mr. Alexander, upon the sub- 

 ject of nectar secretion, states, "My friends, 

 the time will come when many of you will 

 realize that what is commonly called the 

 ' season, ' which is the condition of the ground 

 as to proper moisture and the temperature, 

 and the electrical condition of the atmosphere 

 at the time the Uowers are in bloom, will 

 "have a thousand times more bearing on our 

 surplus than the amount of bloom or the 

 number of colonies we may have in one api- 

 ary." This is worth repeating. A parallel 

 we find in a spring well with a good head. 

 Dip a pailful out of it, and it immediately 

 tills up again; and so it is with the nectar in 

 blossoms under above conditions. In my lo- 

 cality, however, buckwheat appears to yield 

 the best in cloudy, hot, muggy, sultry weather, 

 with an abundance of moisture in tlie ground. 

 Mr. Alexander prefers "a clear sky and a 

 bright hot sun with no wind." 

 ^' 



pollen-clogged COMBS. 



After keeping bees in a good many sections 

 and with different ways of management, com- 

 paring this with the experience of others, I 

 am firmly convinced that management has 

 more to do with pollen- clogged combs than 

 has locality. Next comes the nature of the 

 queen. Since I have adopted the system of 

 practically never having queenless colonies, 

 having large brood-chambers and seeing that 

 they are not clogged with honey, and having 

 prolific queens, I have not had to free my 

 combs of pollen by any artificial method. 

 By the above I mean that, under proper con- 

 ditions, the bees will use up the pollen for 

 brood-rearing about as fast as they bring it 

 in. Of course, I do not ignore the fact that 

 with us, at least, early in the season when 

 pollen is plentiful and honey comparatively 

 scarce in the fields and woods, pollen accu- 

 mulates somewhat to be balanced later on 

 when honey is abundant and bees bring in 

 much less of the pollen. 

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HOW TO lift a hive. 



The editor of the Bee-keepers^ Uevicw states, 

 in a footnote, " When I pick up a hive I step 

 up behind it, i-each down, and put a hand, 

 or the finger ends, in a hand-hole on each 

 side; raise the hive, and rest the back end of 



