The Wingham Advance-Times, 1974-09-26, Page 15•
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the weekly lees IN your Llotowol
J$as*or. Whelks Advaue-
Tlueru, ate, Souutz Serest Ca
iterate Is reed : by 214$00 people m
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(Based se 3.$ r004110rs lo each,
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•
shod ev ry w it the L.stow i Bio, 'rho Wll
and Tho Mount Pirest C011f.dtrat.`by Wongor
O
Les Byers rarely Wears gloves
because they "get toe hot".
That statement is not all that
profound :Unless you know what
Us Byers does for a living; Oters
.. bzzzz . , h. Get the hint?
. Now, imagine naked IMMO
bends lifting a frame infested
with thousands of those stinger-
leiltdpPecl little Monsters' that turn
out the sweetest and purest hid
Of all honey. 0 4
Naturally, when Mr. Byers in-
, forms us be wean no gloves in
tIlis slightly„ dangerous lune Of
work, we draw' the conclusion
that he must be awfully lucky.
Notso. "I get stung about a half a
-men times a'day."
But he maintains a very
'healthy attitude about his predi-
cament. "It's one of the hazards.
Every job has its various haz-
.,,
The Honey House Door, Mr,
Byers' Mount Forest shop, is, if
you'll excuse the pun, a._beehive
of activity this time of year. "My
"busiest Months are August and
September ,because that is when
most of the honey collection takes
-- place."
Winter Feeding
In October he will start the
feeding process over •the winter
' c►hen the bees produce very little.
- March the honey production
-+✓' Mi.again begin.
At At theHoney House Door, with
the help of high school student
anny O'Donnell, Mr. Byers ex-
t_ 'acts the honey from the combs,
itralm;.jtt keeping some in stor-
1
e!.#4,oMers., ' fiaile_ and'
11
market. Hewill�seII t least half
of his crop on a retail basis di-
rectly from his shop. He points
out that most of the "can$7 will
be made` of plastic this year be-
cause there is a shortage of
tinned containers.
If one digs hard enough he will
probably find that his profession
has one of those $25 suit and tie
labels stuck to it for a touch of
class. For example, the word
"journalist" is tossed out when
a newspaperman is in one of his
tux and tails moods.
The beekeeper is no exception.
His pedigree title is (get this)
"apiarist".
Started Young
Mr. Byers became an apiarist
in 1963 when he bought 60 hives
located in two yards. It was not a
new experience for him as his
father, uncle and grandfather
were also beekeepers.
He was 27 years old when he
went into beekeeping full time,
giving up his job as a machinist in
Owen Sound. "I was just fed up
with factory life and wanted to go
on my own. I loved working out-
side, so, this was the most likely
choice."
Mr. Byers says beekeepers
have to know a "bit about farm-
ing" and must have a desire to
work outside. He added they
shouldn't mind getting stung a
few times because "it's going to
happen sooner or later, most
likely sooner."
He now has 15 yards with a
total of about 450 hives located in
Arthur, Conn, Hopeville, Dur-
ham, Kenilworth and Mount For-
est.
The beekeeper acquires his
yards on a rental basis and pays
off either in "money or honey".
He usually rents a corner 50 feet
square and puts his own fence
around it to keep livestock from
coming too close. He is always
looking for new yards "in a
sense".
"If someone had a 15 or 20 foot
area of buckwheat needed for the
special buckwheat honey, I might
use it," he says, adding, however,
that he does not like to move the
bees too much.
For his wholesale business Mr.
Byers packages the honey in five
gallon drums or 45 gallon barrels.
He used to sell his crop to the On-
tario Honey Production Co-op,
but that firm has been sold. There
are several packers he may now
sell to, most of them based in To-
ronto. "The main one right now is
Billy Bee."
Prices Gohng l�'p
He begins selling the honey in
Mid -August and. continues
through to the spring. His honey
std for about $18 for a 30 -pound
pail en a retail basin. He warns
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SMOKE SCREEN—Apiarist, Les Byers of Mount Forest,
uses smoke on his bees to "tone them down a bit". The best
smoker fuel is dried sumach bobs, although anything which
gives plenty of cool smoke and,continues to burn is satisfac-
tory. The most common fuels are shavings, dried leaves
and straw. Burlap and old sacking are also used.
d
POLLEN COLLECTION -Les Byers, a Mount Forest bee-
keeper and owner of the Honey House Door honey shop, col-
lects pollen from about thirty of his 450 hives in a yard near
Mount Forest. He says the pollen is the protein portion of a
baby bee's diet. "They don't live on honey alone." Mr.
Byers has about fourteen other yards located at Arthur,
Conn, Durham, Kenilworth and Hopeville.
that prunes are up about 10 cents
per pound for fey in bulk di.
rectly fro#n the
The price a increase will be
noticed more wieldy in $totes, be
says. treason for the increase
is higher production costa. "I buy
eighty 100-1b. bags of sugar each
winter to feed the bee`, Each hive
requires about 60pounds of honey
or a substitute during the winter
months," says Mr. Byers.
His other overhead Items
include the purchase of about loo
queen bees from Alabamaeach
spring. The queens are packaged
in a small cage with six workers
to feed each queen. The cages
come through the mails at a cost
of $3 per queen.
He usually buys about fifty 24b.
packages of workers with one
queen per package, delivered by
truck each spring. There are
20,000 workers plus , the "queen in
each package at a cost of $18 each
plus $1.50 worth of feed per pack.
Altogether, Mr. Byers' over-
head amounts to approximately
$7,000 per year, depending on the
amounts of sugar required.
He also breeds'his°own bees as
well as importing high quality
bees from southern states. He
imports, he says, "to keep the
blood line up".
Bee raising is a specialty *the
southern United States. "They
breed and raise the bees only for
the purpose of selling them, not
for honey production."
SeHIng Briskly
1, even with high overhead,
beekeepers have beeif. °`dieig a
fair amount of business. With the
public increasingly more consci-
ous of health foods the ilia is
are working bard to meet the de -
mend. In the cAse of Mr. Byers.
production dumped frcion seven
tons in 1067 to 20 too IP 1900 In
1973 he produced 14 ton; of
honey.
"People are more conscious of
foods that are pure .and 'haven't
been arawyeLl
a
roaelaines. The snaking of
Is the only natural pc
liforsweets.Idonotiolug to Abut
" collect Ili
Mucholelb01100ey
is pastenrdhut "may to gtve it
a Jaeger *WIand
h
Please turn to'
.Sr
USES Constructs moreBEESWAX—Beekeeper Les Byers'�+�'�Mttt�
his Mees by wiring r
together, then fatifirrktrearbitffsgvax. MostbstelIW**I1
to make more frames, although some is usedfor processing
into foundation poles and for making candles.
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QUEEN BEE AND DRONES -Les Byers, a Mount Forest beekeeper, displays a frame of
his bees: When handling the.bees he says It is important not to make Perky, frightened
movements. He rarely wears gloves and es a result, "1 get stung about half a dozen times
per day." The gloves tend to be too cumbersome, he says, and are "too hot".