48 



TWELFTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



and the cells would not hatch; whether 

 it w&s because they started on too old 

 larvae, or drone larvae, I do not know; 

 it don't always mean disease when 

 the queen cell don't hatch. 



Pres. Dadant — Mr. Tyrrell — Have you 

 had any experience. 



Mr. Tyrrell — No more than just as 

 Mr. France has mentioned — and Foul 

 Brood. I have seen them where larvae 

 were dead in queen cells from foul 

 brood. 



Mr. Gray — We have had a good deal 

 of bother this summer about the queen 

 being dead, and I laid that to dis- 

 ease. 



Question — What is the best method 

 of packing for out-of-door wintering? 

 Mr. Riggs and I lost heavily, in single 



Mr. Riggs and I lost heavily, in single 

 wall hives, although they were packed 

 with outside casing and four inches 

 of straw; Mr. Riggs put on some kind 

 of sacking, and I myself had some kind 

 of absorbent stuff that came out of a 

 meat car; I used that in the supers, 

 and although I had the top raised a 

 little, we lost heavily; and one man 

 who had double wall hives, out of 

 thirteen colonies lost but one — so that 

 recommends that hive. 



I don't know the name of the firm 

 who makes these hives, but it speaks 

 well for the double wall hive. That is 

 the kind of hive I think I would like 

 myself for out of door wintering. 



Pres. Dadant — In those hives where 

 you suffered the heavy losses, although 

 well packed, did they have any chance 

 to fly on warm days? 



Mr. Vaughn — They didn't have a very 

 good chance. 



Pres. Dadant — Not so well as the 

 others ? 



Mr. Vaughn — Well, there is only about 

 ten miles difference in location. 



Pres. Dadant — Was the packing so 

 thick that the warnnth of the atmos- 

 phere didn't reach them in warm days? 



Mr. Vaughn^ — I judge the packing was 

 too thick. 



Pres. Dadant — And in the other case, 

 where they wintered well, did they not 

 have an oportunity to take flight on 

 a warm day? 



Mr. Vaughn — I am not able to say, 

 but the hive I judge is not so thick of 

 packing as the ones we had. 



Mr. Mioore — That Woodman hive has 



no packing, as I understand it^ust 

 an air space, double wall. 



Mr. Baxter — I have had chaff hives 

 with three inches of chaff between outer 

 and inner walls. I have had double 

 wall hives with dead air space of one 

 inch between inner and outer wall. I 

 have had hiv«s with double wall, one- 

 half inch dead air space between walls, 

 and hives of one inch single wall, the 

 last thirty years; the chaff hive winter 

 the best of all and come out the 

 brightest and strongest, and use less 

 honey. I can see very little difference 

 between the other two hives with one 

 inch and one-half inch dead air space. 

 I have been successful in wintering 

 in all four of these hives by packing 

 leaves on the outside of single wall 

 hives, put lattice work around and 

 fill it up with leaves, besides the in- 

 side packing. 



It is very easy in the spring, to see 

 the difference between the chaff hives 

 and single walled hives — in the way they 

 winter, and in the amount of honey 

 they consume. 



Mr. Gray — I use the Langstroth hive. 



Mr. Baxter — The Langstroth hive is 

 too shallow for wintering. I use a 

 cushion made out of sawdust. 



Mr. Tyrrell — I used to think I knew 

 how to get bees through the winter; 

 I am beginning to think I don't know 

 anything about it. I see just as many 

 different ways of wintering as there are 

 bee-keepers; some of them are a suc- 

 cess and some a failure — there is a 

 reason, of course; different things have 

 a bearing on these different methods, 

 but I have been very much impressed 

 with the methods used in Canada of 

 packing bees in winter. 



It was my good fortune last winter 

 to visit two Conventions in Canada — 

 bee-keepers' conventions, and at one 

 Convention I stayed' over night, a 

 short distance from London; they have 

 as cool weather as we do here, and at 

 the place where I stayed, his method 

 of preparing his bees for winter struck 

 me as being exceptionally good. 



I find that bee-keepers in Canada are 

 going quite a little from cellar to out 

 ■door packing for winter. 



The bees during the summer are all 

 kept in single wall hives; they have 

 four colony packing cases; then the 

 four colonies, at the beginning of 

 winter, are moved close together; two 

 of them coming together and the other 

 two right close to them, facing op- 



