52 



SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL EEPOET OF THE 



spring Vhen T came to unpack my bees, 

 a great many of those leaves were wet from 

 the exhalation of the bees. When steam 

 arose through the mat and accumulated 

 through the leaves, the leaves absorbed 

 the moisture and would be wet. To re- 

 move this I made an inch augur hole at 

 the top end of the cap and I nailed a 

 little piece of wire screening over that so 

 that nothing could get in. 



WTien I explained that to the bee- 

 keepers they laughed at me, they said 

 there was too much ventilation, that the 

 bees would freeze to death. They have 

 come to think that theory is one thing 

 and practice is another. Theory does not 

 always work with practice. We find that 

 with many things and they have decided 

 to use these chaff hives. I have hives 

 that are made of two walls, an inside wall, 

 seven-eighths inch thick and an outside 

 wall seven-eighths inch thick, with a dead 

 air Space between the two walls of seven- 

 eighths inch. These winter very well with 

 leave;:. Then I have hives that I have 

 used for forty years that have only one 

 single wall seven-eighths inch thick, then 

 a cap just like the others, 6 inches deep. 

 Now these hiv^es, to handle them, in addi- 

 tion to packing them inside I pack them 

 on the- outjide with dry leaves, about a 

 foot space all around the hive and these 

 leaves are packed down solid and a gal- 

 vanized iron wire netting around them. 

 They very rarely are wet, seldom in the 

 spring I find them wet, anyhow they 

 winter very well in those hives. 



And I would say another thing I fo.'-got 

 to mention, that my hives are all ten 

 frames and a division board; as I told you 

 some time ago, I remove two frames from 

 the west side of the hives, some times 

 three, leaving onli' seven, and some times 

 only six, according to the strength of the 

 colony. Then I move the dummies up to 

 the frames and this .^^pace is also filled with 

 leaves; so I reduce the capacitj^ of the 

 room occupied by the colony according to ■ 

 the number of bees to take care of the ;^pace, 

 to keep it warm, and I have excellent 

 results. I wintered colonies with only five 

 frames in that way from the time I packed 

 them in November until I opened them 

 up late in April and sometimes not until 

 May. Then I opened some of them, not 

 until after apple bloom and found them in 

 fine shape. 



I cannot get a bee man; we are alwaj'S in 

 need of them, they are not to be had; so 

 I have of late years been doing the work 

 myself, but I have had to neglect doing it 

 at the proper time, that is very bad policy. 

 Everything should be done just when it 



ought to be, and the man that can do that 

 is the man that will alwaj's succeed. 



The Secretary — Mr. President: I find 

 that we can do a thing one way and it 

 may work out all right, but it may not be 

 the best way. Until last winter I have 

 packed my bees just as our President says 

 he has, put in two corn cobs, or two sticks 

 half the size of corn cobs, have them 

 parallel, so as to give a bridge for the bees 

 and last winter I took a section case and 

 filled it with leaves. T guess you will under- 

 stand it. If you have an oil cloth, put the 

 fil cloth over the top of the leaves and 

 put the cover on to that, and I never had 

 bees come through as well as they did last 

 winter, and there were a good many days 

 that the cold and consecutively cold 

 lasted for a week or more. I was fearful 

 they would work up through the leaves, 

 but in all the hives I never found one that 

 had done so. Some of them were a little 

 damp. 



Mr. Root — I just want to remark per- 

 sonally that Mr. Baxter's method of pack- 

 ing his bees is exactly orthodox, so far as 

 I understand orthodoxy. I think it is a 

 verj'- good packing. I think that the pack- 

 ing on the outside is very seldom wet. 

 Another thing, a bunch of leaves will shed 

 water and I imagine it would be very 

 seldom wet. I think you will find nature 

 has put them so that they will shed water. 

 So you are getting a double walled hive 

 which you are already starting with a 

 double thickness of packing. 



I do not think we can over emphasize the 

 advantage of packing. Too many bee- 

 keepers, are suffering because they do not 

 have enough packing and I think the error 

 is usually in not having enough rather than 

 too much. 



This question of sealing is an absorbing 

 one. I have for many years in our locality 

 tried both ways and I have never yet been 

 able to determine which is better, sealed 

 or unsealed. 



The President— We tried it first in 1884 

 or 1885. There are a great many bee- 

 keepers in the country who favor the 

 scheme of absorbing moisture. I am 

 watching it every yea^-. Take a dozen 

 colonies in single walled hives, with the 

 same exposure, get them along side by 

 side, same strength, similar queens, get 

 the colonies and stores exactly alike; you 

 will find that the colonies packed with 

 wind breaks use less stores than the col- 

 onies that are not so packed. As a general 

 thing, the single walled hives winter, but 

 they will be so weak, they will hardly do 

 business, while the sheltered hive will 

 come out in nice strong colonies. So I am 



