A MONTHLY JOURNAL 



Devoted to the Interests of Honey Producers 

 f LO0 a fear 



W. Z. HUTCHINSON, Editor and Publisher. 



VOL. XXIII. 



FLINT. MICHIGAN. MARCH 1. 1910. 



NO. 5 



If Retreat is Necessary, Let it be 

 Done In Good Order. 



W. Z. HUTCHINSON. 



IN telling, recently, in the Review, 

 of the mistakes that I had made 

 in a bee keeping way, I mentioned 

 that of trying to winter 100 colonies in 

 the cellar by confining the bees to their 

 hives with half-stories under the hives, 

 and wire cloth over the lower sides of 

 the half-stories. I thought that the 

 screen was so far below the cluster that 

 the bees would not know that they were 

 shut in; but the warm weather, high 

 temperature, aroused them, and soon the 

 screens were covered with a mass of 

 frantic bees. When the winter was half- 

 gone I saw that there would be no live 

 bees left in the hives by spring, unless 

 some radical measures were taken, so I 

 took them out of the cellar and moved 

 them to the yard in the edge of the 

 woods, and removed the half-stories. A 

 few of the colonies were dead, many con- 

 tained only a handful each of live bees, 

 while a few were in a passably fair 

 condition. 



There was no question that the bees 

 and I must make a retreat; that things 

 must go backwards, or downwards, until 

 the coming May. It would be sad, heart 



rending, "blasted hopes," and all that, 

 but I set my jaws together, planted a 

 heel firmly on the ground, and resolved 

 that, if retreat must come, it should be 

 done decently and in good order. Not an 

 inch should be relinquished without a 

 fight; and there should be no panic. In 

 spite of all I could do there would be a 

 big loss, but no stone should be left un- 

 turned to keep it as low as possible. 



HELP FROM PROTECTION. 



First, I contracted the entrances to 

 about half an inch square, then I made 

 some division boards out of brood frames 

 by nailing a sheet of straw board on each 

 side of a frame, and filling the hollow 

 space with sawdust. The sheets of 

 straw board were cut such a size as to 

 reach the sides and bottom of the hive. 

 One of these division boards was placed 

 against the side of a hive, the bees 

 against this, then, next to the bees, 

 another division board put in, care being 

 taken that at least one of the combs 

 between the division boards contained 

 plenty of honey. Any colony that could 

 not cover three combs fairly well, was 



