426 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



will only say that though I have studied this subject widely and closely, I have 

 yet to observe aught to invalidate the above stated truth. 



We next come to view the second factor in safe wintering : sutKcient and 

 wholesome food. That bees need some food to stand between them and starva- 

 tion, experience has too often proved. This fact will receive universal credence. 

 But that the stores are not always of a suitable character though just as true, is 

 not well understood. 



The autumn of 1871 — the year of Chicago's great calamity — will ever be 

 memorable throughout our northern States for its nnparalleled drouth. Every 

 green thing, flowers included, shriveled for want of moisture. Thus bees were 

 cut off from their usual source of honey. During the same autumn there were 

 an unusual number of plant and bark lice. The willows, the beeches, the tulip 

 trees, in fact almost every plant supported some species of these families of 

 vegetable parasites. The same excessive drought that blasted the flowers 

 favored the development of these withering insects. The bees, ever eager for 

 sweets, not able to sip from the flowers, gathered largely from tliese lice, which 

 secreted a sweetish substance from their bodies. Many observed, and I among 

 the rest, a large amount of uncapped honey or stores as they prepared their 

 colonies for winter, and wondered at so unusual an occurrence. During the 

 succeeding winter I experienced my only other case of disaster in wintering. 

 To be sure the winter w^is cold, but my bees were so protected that tiiey felt it 

 not. My twelve colonies went into winter quarters quite strong and in fine con- 

 dition every way, except that they were provisioned with this uncapped honey, 

 which T supposed would bo fully capped, as there was yet abundance of time 

 after 1 last looked at them in the fall. In February I examined my bees and 

 to my great surprise, for this was my first misfortune with bees, I found eight 

 of the colonies dead. I was no less surprised to find the honey still uncapped. 

 Bees usually gather honey and leave it to be capped when the condition becomes 

 such as to warrant it. This never reached the condition of good honey. May this 

 not be why it never was capped? I tasted of the honey and found it nauseating 

 in the extreme. I believe that this unsuitable food killed my bees. What 

 makes this seem more probable is the fact that one of the four remaining colo- 

 nies, all of which seemed equally diseased and feeble, from which I took all the 

 stores, replacing them with good capped honey, stored early the previous sea- 

 son, commenced at once to revive, recovered entirely before spring, and gave a 

 net return of over seventy dollars the succeeding season. The remaining colo- 

 nies, which were cleansed of dead bees, permitted to fly, but which retained 

 their unwholesome stores, soon perished. The following spring I examined 

 several defunct apiaries in this vicinity, and in every case found the same con- 

 dition of ill-tasting stores. Those who, like Mr. Davis, saw that their bees had 

 only good capped stores and were well protected did not suffer loss. Hence I 

 think I am safe in affirming that in this region, one of the chief factors which 

 wrought the disease of that year was unsuitable food. 



Our third truth, that colonies should be plenteous in young bees as winter 

 draws on, is so compatible with reason that it seems hardly necessary to sub- 

 stantiate it with experiments. In my own experience I have only negative evi- 

 dence. I have always kept my bees breeding well into autumn, and have never 

 suffered by spring dwnidling. Mr. Davis reduces the number of his colonies 

 each autumn by destroying the old bees and nniting the young ones, till each 

 colony is strong, and lias never suffered loss. A year ago I thought I would 

 put this matter to a test in a small way. In one hive I permitted no brood to 



