ILLIIS'OIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS ASSOCIATIOiSr. 



53 



a believer in packing, because I think it 

 pays, and I am a firm believer in wind 

 breaks. . I' have seen so many yards, trav- 

 eling through the country, where they said 

 they wintered through without any pack- 

 ing. Well, they had a splendid wind 

 break. I have seen colonies die where 

 they had no wind break. I would dis- 

 pense with the packing and have a wind 

 break if I had only one, but I want both. 



Mr. Kildow — It seems to me that if 

 you use the sealed cover you must have 

 abundant packing so that the top of the 

 cover does not get cold. 



The President— Yes. 



Mr. Kildow — Otherwise you will have 

 a cake of ice over them. That is the 

 experience I have had. 



Mr. Dadant — I would like to say some- 

 thing in regard to the sealed covers. 

 Experience is a great thing, especially 

 when you have to pay for it. We tried 80 

 chaff hives that Mr. Baxter spoke about, 

 chaff hives with 3 inch wall all around 

 and under. The greatest trouble with 

 those chaff hives was that when a warm 

 day came the bees did not know it. The 

 colony that had only an ich or so of wall 

 knew when there was a warm day and 

 took a flight. Where we are located a 

 warm day does the bees a lot of good; 

 we want them to fly on a warm, day. In 

 our large chaff hives they did hot fly on 

 a warm day. I think understanding the 

 matter better now we could make a chaff 

 hive from which they would fly. 



In regard to the sealed cover, we had 

 those 80 chaff hives and we had also two 

 or three hundred hives that you might call 

 single wall, they have a double wall in the 

 back, that is, two planks, one against the 

 other on the north side of the hive — the 

 hive always faces south — and on the west 

 side a division board. We had both those 

 kinds of hives with oil cloths on the 

 frames, those cloths were either painted or 

 oiled, or a regular oil cloth, they were 

 absolutely air tight, sealed covers. We 

 used forest leaves in the cap, not because 

 we wanted them to absorb the moisture, 

 they could not, but simply to keep the 

 top warm. 



In the winter of 1884.-85, that is a good 

 while ago, but I can remember it as well 

 as yesterday, we had a tremendously long 

 winter, the bees were confined to the hives 

 a long time; the oil cloths on top of those 

 hives were not all perfect, some were 

 moisture proof, some had little holes made 

 by the bees; some of those cloths had 

 been on a long time and had holes six 

 inches across and we had the. leaves over 

 those. When we examined the bees after 



that hard, cold winter, the hives that had 

 the biggest holes, with the greatest chance 

 for the moisture to arise into the forest 

 leaves, were the healthiest. The hives that 

 were absolutely air tight, sealed covering, 

 had moisture all over the combs because, 

 with the inside of the hive getting below 

 the freezing point, the moisture of the 

 bees would freeze heavily around them, 

 and when the thaw came, we found those 

 bees soaked with water, while the colonies 

 with the open space, and therefore no 

 sealed covers, but a space for the moisture 

 to rise into those leaves, were dry. This 

 was a lesson I cannot forget. I do not say 

 that it will happen every year, in fact it 

 will not, because there are very few sear 

 sons like that, but that l^son was enough 

 for me and since that time I have never 

 had sealed covers on my hives. We use 

 a straw mat, as Mr. Baxter told j^ou, and 

 our caps telescope. That is, I think, one 

 great advantage over the ordinarj^ Lang- 

 stroth hive in which one story fits over the 

 other. The reason I use the telescope 

 cover is that it breaks the joint. It fits 

 over and goes down about an inch and 

 there is no joint for the air to get through. 

 The straw and the leaves over the bees 

 are like a blanket. When you have a 

 woolen blanket over you, the moisture 

 rises from your body and gets lost, yet 

 you are not in a draft. That is why I am 

 in favor of absorbing packing over the 

 bees. 



I do not want sealed covers. They have 

 told me that in the state of nature the 

 bees would seal everything. I do not 

 think they seal it because they want 

 sealed covers for cold weather. I think 

 the reason they seal the trunk in the tree 

 is to keep the insects off that are in the 

 rotten wood. They seal everything they 

 cannot remove, and make it tight, but I 

 do not think that has anything to do 

 with the question of wintering. I believe 

 the hives that have a large opening, one 

 that will give a chance for ventilation or 

 the absorption of dampness, are the better 

 ones, better than those that are nearly 

 closed, because in the latter case the 

 moisture congeals right over the frames. 



The Secretkry — If nobody else wants to 

 say anything, I should like to finish up 

 some of the things that Mr. Dadant has 

 said, as carrying out some of the things 

 that I said, about the slotted board having 

 plenty of air holes and there is no sealing 

 there at all. There is no burlap or any- 

 thing to protect the leaves from getting 

 down among the combs, only held up by 

 those slotted boards. And I thought per- 

 haps the moisture might curl up those 



