A MONTHLY JOURNAL 



Devoted to the Interests of Honey Producers 

 f LOO a Bear 



W. Z. HUTCHINSON, Editor and Publisher. 



VOL. XXIII. 



FLINT. MICHIGAN, OCTOBER 1, 1910. 



NO. 10 



Successful Wintering of Bees Out of Doors 

 In the Far North. 



IRA D. BARTLETT. 



w 



lURING the 

 past f e w 

 years I have re- 

 ceived numerous 

 inquiries as to 

 my method, and 

 style of hives, 

 used in winter- 

 ing bees out of 

 doors, hence I 

 conclude that a 

 description may 

 interest a goodly number of bee keepers 

 who practice cellar wintering, or who 

 may not be as successful as they would 

 like in wintering their bees in boxes, or 

 some other equipment, out of doors. 



As I look about me I notice that the 

 majority of apiarists in my neighborhood 

 are wintering their bees in boxes, into 

 which the hive is placed and packed with 

 some sort of material that is most con- 

 venient to get. 



I know of only one apiarist here who 

 seems to make a marked success of cellar 

 wintering, and he told me that he left 

 the bees on their summer stands until 



the snow came. I do not see why the 

 bees should do so much better under 

 those conditions, unless the queen kept 

 laying later, and the old bees had entirely 

 disappeared, by the time they were put 

 into the cellar. 



Mr. Geo. Jaquays, a successful comb 

 honey producer who keeps about 75 

 colonies, wintered his bees in hives simi- 

 lar to my own, packed with chaff, when 

 he first started keeping bees, but later he 

 built a cellar under the living room of his 

 house and wintered his bees in it for 

 some few seasons, told me that he was 

 through with cellar wintering; and, the 

 past winter, he wintered his bees suc- 

 cessfully in packed, out-of-door boxes. 



1 am located in the snow belt of Michi- 

 gan, 45° N. latitude, and it is possible 

 that this is one reason why the bees 

 winter so well; they having the protec- 

 tion of the snow which oft times drifts 

 high over them, but which need cause 

 no fear of the bees smothering, even 

 though a crust form over the top of the 

 snow in the early spring. There is 

 plenty of air in the loose snow. How- 



