38 



TWELFTH ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE 



cident; one bee-keeper spoke to me 

 about the trouble he had with his 

 combs moulding in the cellar; I told 

 him it was from lack of ventilation; 

 and that it would be well to take the 

 covers oft of his hives and put :> sheet 

 of burlap over the top of the frames; 

 provide plenty of upper ventilation, so 

 that there would be a draft in there, 

 and he would experience no trouble 

 with his combs moulding. 



It does not matter whether the cellar 

 is wet or dry, — if you can keep the 

 temperature equal and give them 

 plenty of ventilation — you will come 

 out all right. 



A member — I am sure that half of 

 my losses of last winter were due to 

 sitarvation — to lack of feed. 



Mr. Kildow — Here is a question along 

 that line. 



Heavy Winter Losses. 



To what do you attribute the heavy 

 winter losses of last year? 



Mr. Dtuby — A long, cold spell. 



Mr. Moore — Speaking for the five 

 counties that I inspected, I would say 

 that the poor stores, and the long, con- 

 tinued cold weather gave the bees 

 dysentery. I examined the combs of 

 several hundred colonies of bees that 

 had died, and in almost every 

 instance it was due to dysentery, 

 with plenty of stores in the hives 

 this spring. 



Pres. Dadant — I think we ought to 

 have a pretty general discussion from 

 all those who have an opinion on the 

 subject. Mr. Roberts, what have you 

 to say ? 

 "\ Mr. Roberts — I believe that most of 

 . the bees died from starvation, with 

 plenty of honey in the hives; the reason 

 was that the top was tight and they 

 could not get through; there was no 

 communication — so they died. 



Some one wanted to buy some bees, 

 and a party had twenty-six swarms 

 for sale. He said to me, — "Mr. Roberttv* 

 is it safe for me to buy those bees?" 

 I told him to turn up the hive and 

 look in, and he did so, and there was 

 a solid inch of ice; this was in Febru- 

 ary. I said to him — "If you can take 

 them to a warm room and thaw them 

 out gradually, you can save them. 



I believe that most of the bees died, 

 last winter, by being confined that 

 way — having ice all around them, and 

 they could not get honey. 



Mr. Moore — I can hardly agree with 

 that idea. Down at Roseville — Mrs. 

 Axtell, who has been a bee-keeper for 

 years — she is an old member of this 

 Association, , and has had articles 

 printed in the Association Reports — • 

 last winter had sixty colonies of bees; 

 they use the large double walled chaff 

 hives; and had the bees packed thor- 

 oughly and carefully last fall, with 

 plenty of stores; and in those chaff 

 hives s'he had very little trouble from 

 ice forming around the bees, or 'becom- 

 ing too cold. 



I examined several hundreds of the 

 combs of those sixty colonies and 

 found traces of dysentery on all of 

 them, so I was firmly convinced that it 

 was simply dysentery; it was caused 

 from poor quality of stores. The bees 

 worked on decayed peaches last year, 

 and being conflend so long on account 

 of the cold weather, it gave them dys- 

 entery. 



L. C. Dadant — I believe it is more 

 from the bad stores than from the 

 long winter. In one of our apiaries we 

 had ninety colonies; twenty- three of 

 which we bought of another man and 

 transferred along in August. They 

 made their stores after August and had 

 good honey, while the others had hon- 

 eydew. 



Out of these twenty-three — we lost 

 one or twQ, and from the rest, we lost 

 35 per cent — located on the same slope: 

 they also came out in much better 

 condition than the rest — so it proves 

 that the long winter had less to do 

 than the quality of stores, -with the 

 losses of last winter. 



Pres. Dadant — Mr. France, we would 

 like to hear from you. 



Mr. P'rance— I would like to keep still 

 on these subjects, but I will say that 

 in my trips over the State, in the fore 

 part of the season, inspecting bees, 

 v.-here the winter losses were heavy, 

 I found, almost without exception, that 

 the losses came where the honej- flow 

 was unusually heavy. 



Several in our State save out full 

 combs of clover and basswood, to ex- 

 change in the fall for fall honey, and 

 they hardly ever have winter losses. 



I call to mind a Oonvention at -New 

 York one winter; they had a little 

 banquet at the close of the conven- 

 tion, and upon the table was some 

 New York Gilt Edge Honey; it hap^. 



