WINTEKIJJG. 



489 



WINTEKING. 



should be swept up often and removed. A 

 disposition to roar should be met by more 

 ventilation, and at the same time the tem- 

 perature should be reduced. If all the colo- 

 nies in the cellar should become uneasy dur- 

 ing mid-winter it is evident that something 

 must be done at once or the whole lot of bees 

 will be lost. They ought not to become un- 

 easy until late in the spring. If they can 

 not be quieted by infusions of fresh air it 

 may be best to give the uneasy colonies a 

 flight on the first warm day by setting them 

 outdoors and letting them stay there for 24 

 hours or until they can clean themselves. 

 Dysentery or diarrhea in the bee-cellar is 

 generally the result of too much cold air or 

 too high a temperature, either of which will 

 induce too large a consumption of stores; 

 and where bees are not able to void their 

 feces, the intestines become distended, re- 

 sulting in purging. A colony so affected 

 should be removed as soon as a warm day 

 comes. 



WHEN TO PUT BEES IN THE CELLAR, AND 

 WHEN TO TAKE THEM OUT. 



This is a question that depends entirely 

 on locality. Most bees go into the cellar 

 in the Northern States anywhere from the 

 last of November until the first of January; 

 but usually it is advisable to have all bees 

 in before Christmas. As to when the bees 

 should be taken out of the cellar, authori- 

 ties differ. Some set them out in March, 

 and then put on winter cases. See Spring 

 Management. Others believe it is better 

 policy to keep bees in late or until the last 

 cold weather is past, and then set them out. 

 We would advise taking the golden mean, 

 waiting until the time natural pollen comes, 

 or, in our locality, soft maples bloom. But 

 when bees are uneasy in the cellar it is ad- 

 vised to set them out earlier than otherwise. 



TIME OF DAY TO TAKE BEES OUT. 



The usual plan for taking bees from a 

 cellar in the spring is to wait until fairly 

 settled warm weather has come, and then on 

 some warm bright day all the colonies are 

 removed at once. The great trouble with 

 this method is that the bees are likely to be- 

 come badly mixed, owing to their eager flight 

 without carefully marking the location. This 

 results in a bad state of affairs, and should 

 be avoided. 



Another method followed to some extent 

 is to put some of the colonies out during an 

 evening when all appearances indicate that 

 it will be warm and bright the next day. A 

 third of them, perhaps, are taken out, and 



these fly quite well the next day. The next 

 evening another third is removed, and the 

 last third the night following. The great 

 trouble with tliis plan is that the bees re- 

 moved first get to flying well and then start 

 to rob colonies taken out later, thus making 

 a fearful uproar. 



Mr. E. W. Alexander, in Gleanings in Bee 

 Culture, page 286, Vol. XXXI Y., gave a plan 

 open to none of these objections. In his own 

 words it is as follows: 



" First get every thing all ready for a big 

 job, and watch the weather closely, especial- 

 ly after a few nice days, for it is quite 

 changeal)le at this time of the year. Then 

 when the wind gets around in the east, and 

 it commences to become overcast with heavy 

 clouds, and has every appearance of bad 

 weather for the morrow, we commence 

 about sundown and carry out all our bees- 

 yes, even if it takes not only all night but 

 into the next day ; and if it commences to 

 rain before we are done, all the better, for 

 we don't want any to try to fly until they 

 have been out two or three days if we can 

 help it. By this time they will have become 

 nice and quiet; and when a fair day arrives 

 they will commence to fly, only a few at a 

 time, and get their location marked, so there 

 will be no mixing up or robbing, because 

 they all have their first fly together. Then 

 when the day is over we find by examining 

 our hives that nearly every one has apparent- 

 ly retained all its bees." 



SHALL WE PUT THE COLONIES BACK ON THE 

 OLD STANDS IN SPRING? 



There is this advantage in putting the 

 colonies back : Mr. H. K. Boardman let- 

 ters each row in his apiary, and numbers 

 every hive, each body and bottom-board 

 bearing the number and the letter of 

 its respective position. In the spring, in 

 carrying bees out he is able to deposit his 

 hive right where it was the preceding fall. 

 "C6," we will say, is to go directly to the C 

 row, and on arrival it is replaced on bottom 

 No. 6. Mr. Boardman does not attach very 

 much importance to bees being put back up- 

 on their old stands; though if he can, just as 

 conveniently, he prefers doing so, because 

 some old bees will go back to where they 

 were the previous fall. 



CARRIERS FOR HIVES. 



A wheeled vehicle is not as good for mov- 

 ing bees in and out of a cellar as some sort 

 of carrier. There are several good ones and 

 we here show a few. 



For hives without projections a pair of U- 

 shaped wires bent to form a sort of bail an- 



