ILLIN^OIS STATE BEE-KEEPEES ASSOCIATION. 



57 



I like to hear the opinions of different 

 ones. After we liave heard all this, as I 

 said before, we will go home and do as 

 we please anywa}'. 



]Mr. Secretar}' — I should like to ask Mr. 

 Dadant if he ever tried the packed hive 

 and the unpacked hive side by side? 



Mr. Dadant — Yes, certainly. I want to 

 cite the experience of one man, he is dead, 

 but his experience is wonderful, S. X. 

 Black. He was at one time president of 

 this Association. He usually came to 

 every meeting. He kept his bees in un- 

 packed hives, more or less in the wind. 

 One winter he lost all but 6 or 8 hives. He 

 said he knew exactly how to winter bees, 

 but there was no use trying to winter them 

 safely in Illinois. 



^Ir, Bowen — I remember Mr. Black, and 

 I want to saj-, furthermore, he told us 

 here on one occasion in regard to keeping 

 bees, that one of his hives got upset by a 

 cow, so that it laid over on the side through 

 very cold weather and he expected to lose 

 those bees, but thej' came through all right. 



The President- — He never packed his 

 bees, and that is why he lost them. 



Mr. Bowen — This one hive was exposed 

 and it went through ail right. 



Mr. Dadant — That is all right, accidents 

 will happen^. If you think they will winter 

 that way, trot along. 



Mr. Bowen — I am not in favor of up- 

 setting a hive, but I am not in favor of 

 going to so much trouble in packing, as 

 you suggest, and when I find that I can 

 keep more bees by doing that than not 

 packing, I will change over. ^ 



The President — Why not pack from the 

 hive? I p^ck ten colonies per hour. Is 

 there anything faster or cheaper than that? 



Mr. Erbaugh — incidentally I might men- 

 tion that at the Michigan State Apiary, 

 the apiary is square and around it in each 

 of the corners we have quadruple packing 

 cases, government packing cases, like I 

 mentioned. The colonies in those produced 

 nearly two supers of extracted honey this 

 year, the colonies outside of the square 

 that were not packed in those cases, al- 

 though some of them were double walled 

 iiives, produced just about an extracting 

 super less honey. That is an instance. 

 Now, there must be something in it. I 

 would not be so enthusiastic over packing 

 if I had not seen that. 



The President — There may be something 

 in the queen. 



Mr. Erbaugh — Same breed of bees al- 

 together. 



The President — That does not make any 

 difference. Packing does not always ac- 

 count for the success, , 



Mr. Erbaugh — Positively no. Ff you re- 

 queen a colony at the proper time and do 

 not pack it, and pack one that has the old. 

 degenerate queen, your j^oung queen will 

 probably come out better than the packed 

 one. But that is not a true e.xample. 



In this case we had about 16 colonies 

 packed and a little less unpacked. The 

 sixteen colonies averaged just about a 

 super of honey larger than the others. 

 Those colonies were treated as nearly as 

 possible the same. Of course we did not 

 just exactly see that they had the same 

 kind of queen, or the same brood and all, 

 but the comparison goes to show the effect, 

 I think. 



Mr, Bowen — It might be well enough to 

 pack bees up in Michigan, but the system 

 I was speaking of is down in God's country. 



Air. Erbaugh — My experience was down 

 in Peru, Indiana, just about due east of 

 here, and about the same conditions as 

 here. My father, if he had a weak colony, 

 would pack, he did not waiit it to die, and 

 they would probably go through where a 

 strong colony might die. Now, was it the 

 queen or the colony, or what was it? 



The Secretary — Last winter was a very 

 severe wiinter, you will remember there 

 were a great many cold days, at least with 

 us, and my bees packed, as I said, with 

 leaves in the top, these "slotted- beards in 

 the half-story super; they came out so 

 strong that I had a s\varm of bees the 

 fifth of May, and the hives were just 

 covered with bees whenever there was a 

 warm day. I was afraid they would swarm 

 themselves to death before May ended. 

 In fact, I did not feed them anything, for 

 I knew the fruit bloom would pass and that 

 they would be getting plenty. Then I be- 

 gan feeding them something to keep the 

 stores up, to keep the breeding going on, 

 and those bees were strong all the time 

 from early in May, and wintered that way. 

 I do not think anything will beat that. 



The President — I have understood that 

 the production of honey by any apiarj' or 

 any special colony is a prima facie evidence 

 of good packing. There are other con- 

 siderations to be taken into account. The 

 time to tell about the packing is when you 

 unpack the last of April in this latitude, or 

 the first of May, you can compare your 

 coloiiies, you can see the strength of 

 different colonies, the amount of brood, the 

 amount of stores they have consumed, and 

 that will tell you the tale about packing. 

 But when you go on to the last of June and 

 compare results as to the production of 

 honey, that is quite a different tale. I can 

 take a colony that has come through the 

 winter in very poor shape, if that has an 



