American Hee Journal 



March, 1908. 



yours has been on a much higher plane than 

 my own. 



I was born on a farm (and have always lived 

 on a farm) January m, iS.i^. in the town 

 of Wellineton. Ohio, 8 miles south of Oberlin. 

 In the spring of 1846 I moved with my parents, 

 one brother and 4 sisters, to Winnebago Co., 

 Wis., being the first white settlers in what is 

 now 3 townships. Thirty years later I came to 

 this county in Iowa, with my wife and 4 chil- 

 dren, and in 1880 I bought the farm we now 

 occupy. 



In April, 1863, I bought my first colony of 

 bees, in a boxhive, paying $6.00. You got 

 yours ni a ■■barrel" nearly 2 years previous. 

 The next year an agent came around selling 

 the "Langstroth" hive, or "farm rights" for 

 that hive, carrying the idea that a colony once 

 located in that hive, the bees would do the 

 rest. Of course I secured some of the hives 

 as soon as possible, and at the end of 2 years 

 I had 7 colonies, and thought I was right in 

 the business, but that fall I put them into a 

 smoke-house to winter, and in the spring all 

 came out — dead. I tried for a number of years 

 with about the same results, to keep bees, till 

 1883 I bought 2 colonies, secured modern hives 

 for swarms, and have been in the business ever 

 since, keeping on an average about 40 colonies. 

 I now have 43 in the cellar. With one excep- 

 tion, I think the season of 1907 the poorest 

 I have known, my crop of section honey, in- 

 cludmg pollen, being about 26 pounds per col- 

 ony, spring count. 



But enough for the bee-side of my life. I 

 think I was born with a great love for music, 

 although neither of my parents were musicians. 

 Ican't remember when I could not sing (in a 

 high soprano) all the old tunes, such as Ba- 

 lerma, Boylston, Ortonville, Arlington, and 

 hosts of others, by the side of which, for pure 

 harmony, this modern "hop-skip-and-jump" mu- 

 sic holds no comparison. At the age of 7 

 years, I began to ■■sing by note." After I was 

 16 I made many a long "Sabbath-day's jour- 

 ney ' attending meetings in 3 different school 

 houses (we had no churches in those days), 

 m as many different townships, where I had to 

 "start the tunes." I have taught singing a 



food many winters, both in Wisconsin and 

 owa I now own a good old violin that I 

 bought SI years ago last September, at an 

 expense of nearly 5 times that of my first col- 

 ony of bees. It has been of great service to 

 me for many years in meetings, Sunday-schools, 

 and singing schools, and with the addition of a 

 good organ, there has always been "music in 

 our home." 



We have reared 5 children, all of whom 

 are away except the oldest son who runs the 

 farm, and with his family of wife and 3 chil- 

 dren lives in another house near by. My wife 

 and I passed our 49th wedding anniversary Jan- 

 uary 25. igo8. Iowa. 



Answi-iss. — I. Your question is not easy to 

 answer. If the frames in the brood-chamber 

 were shallow, that would help account for it. 

 Even if not very shallow, if the brood was 

 clear up to the top-bars, it would be nothing 

 unnatural for the bees to put pollen above as a 

 sort of border. To be sure, my bees often 

 have brood clear up to the top-bar, but then 

 there are sections above, and they don't seem 

 so much like a continuation of the brood-cham- 

 ber as your shallow frames. 



2 A queen-excluder would probably have made 

 httle or no difference. 



Your surmise that the queen and workers had 

 different views is hardly tenable. Whatever the 

 workers plan for the queen to do, you may gen- 

 erally find her carrying out, if not prevented 

 by an excluder, and in your case there was no 

 excluder. It is not at all uncommon for the 

 bees to store pollen above the brood-nest, for 

 convenience, and this was something in the 

 same line. 



Thanks for personal items. 



Bee-Cellar Temperature — Bumping 

 Bees Off Frames— Top and Bot- 

 tom Starters — Afterswarms — 

 Separators. 



I. Why must the temperature be so exact in 

 cellar-wintering, not over 50 nor below 45 de- 

 grees? Mr. Root claims that if the tempera- 

 ture can not be kept very close to these figures 

 tetter winter the bees out-of-doors. Out-door 

 wintering in .Tones Co., Iowa, would mean (or 

 would be liable to mean) anything from so 

 above to 20 below zero, and that sometimes 

 inside of 48 hours, or nearly so. I have seen 

 the thermometer go down 40 degrees in 24 

 hours. Now if that wouldn't be a radical 

 change on bees. I don't know what would. 



I,ast year our cellar didn't get out of 45 and 

 50 degrees, at least at any time that I looked 

 at the thermometer, and that was every few 



days. This year it has been the same, only it 

 has stood most of the time at 47 degrees, but 

 the weather has been very fine with no radical 

 changes in temperature. Bees would have been 

 all right out-of-doors so far. 



When the cellar warms up to so degrees I 

 open the inside cellar door in the evening, 

 which in an hour or two reduces the tempera- 

 ture. The outside door has some cracks at 

 the bottom about one inch wide, which seem 

 to be about right for ventilation, and yet by 

 being in the stairway for some time the air is 

 warmed up some, and at the same time pure. 

 Our cellar is 16x22 feet inside, 6'/i foot ceil- 

 ing, and dry. In 4 years' wintering in this 

 cellar I have lost one colony, and it was no 

 fault of the cellar. 



But to tell the truth, after reading so many 

 articles in the bee-papers and bee-books on win- 

 tering, I almost got "dizzy." Mr. Alexander 

 says perfect quiet is one of the essentials in 

 cellar-wintering. No doubt it is best, but if 

 you were in our cellar a few minutes when 

 the folks— little folks and all— were in the 

 kitchen, oh dear!— well, the bees could prob- 

 ably swarm right in the cellar and you wouldn't 

 hear them. Now, according to Mr. Alexander, 

 I would figure if I never had wintered bees 

 in there before that, I wouldn't have a bee 

 left by spring. 



When such men as E. R. Root, Mr. Alexan- 

 der, and several others, lay out a plan for 

 cellar-wintering, a young bee-man almost wishes 

 •■every day was summer." as he gets no relief 

 until the balmy days of spring come and he 

 can count up his bees. However, I don't 

 propose to kill the goose that laid the golden 

 egg. So I put them in November 20, after 

 having 2 good days of flying. .•\ny com- 

 ments? 



2. In bumping bees off of combs, as illus- 

 trated in Gleanings, do you bump queens and all 

 on the ground, or do vou look out for the 

 queen. I take it you do. E. R. Root objects 

 m, "A B C of Bee-Culture," to your tent 

 escape for supers for the reason that the young 

 bees are unable to get back to the hive. How 

 about them bumped on the ground and in the 

 grass? 



3. Has any one ever tried putting a narrow 

 piece of starter on all 4 sides of a section? If 

 so, what would be the probable results? 



4. Do I understand you to mean in Glean- 

 ings of Dec. 15, that success can not be ob- 

 tained with top and bottom starters except 

 that the two come very close together? How 

 far apart could they be, and get good re- 

 sults? 



5. Do you place the dove-tailed corner of a 

 section on top or at the bottom? 



6. In cutting cells to prevent after-swarms, 

 how soon would it be safe to do it and be 

 sure of not having a c|ucenless colony? 



7- Would this not be a good time to make 

 increase if one so desires, while he had plenty 

 of ripe cells? 



8. A neighbor hived a swarm of bees last 

 summer, clipped the queen, put them on full 

 sheets of foundation, and the bees went to 

 work and made considerable comb and stored 

 some honey, but on examining them one day 

 he was chagrined to find them gone. How 

 could they go with a clipped queen? Where? 

 It beats my time for a clipped queen. 



9. I often read of bees in the cellar being 

 "still as death." Isn't it very rare when one 

 can't hear a gentle hum by placing an ear to 

 the hive? 



10. What separator do you consider best, 

 fence or sawed wood? I ordered sawed wood, 

 slotted top and bottom. 



11. How do you think it would work, and 

 could you see any benefit in boring five j^-inch 

 holes in a solid separator opposite the sections? 

 Would this not give a little freer communica- 

 tion to the bees that so many claim to be an 

 advantage? By cleaning them in lye the holes 

 wouldn't hinder in cleaning by breaking out as 

 they might do if scraped. Iowa. 



Answers. — i. I once saw a picture of a 

 darkey on the top of a ladder, a pig scratch- 

 ing itself against the foot of the ladder, and 

 the darkey calling down. "Go 'way, go 'way, 

 pig; you'm makin' mischief, dar." I feel to- 

 ward you a good deal as the darkev did to- 

 ward the pig. When vou try to get me to 

 reconcile the different views as to things about 

 cellar wintering, "you'm shorely m,akin' mis- 

 chief for me." It's like a good many other 

 things in bee-keeping, localities, conditions, etc., 

 differ, and then something must be allowed for 

 the uncertainty of the English language. 



The cellar must be "not over 50 nor below 

 45." That's true or it's not true, depending 

 upon how you understand it, and also some- 

 what upon circumstances. A cellar whose tem- 

 perature stands most of the time below 45 

 degrees is not likely to be a good pl.ace to 

 winter bees. If it stands most of the time 

 above 50 degrees, and is kept constantly closed, 

 as most cellars are, it is not likely to be a 



good place to winter bees. That is probably 

 what was in mind when it was said the 

 cellar must be "not over 50 nor below 45." 

 But a cellar in which bees winter well may 

 run some of the time above 50, and some of 

 the time below 45. 



But don't make the mistake of thinking the 

 temperature the only thing. The purity or im- 

 purity of the air in the cellar has a whole 

 lot to do in the case — more than is generally 

 supposed. When a closed cellar stands for a 

 time above 50 degrees, it is generally not the 

 temperature that docs harm, but the foul air. 

 With ventilation enough so the bees shall be 

 the same as out-doors, there will be no trouble. 



Whether ■■perfect quiet" is an essential for 

 cellar-wintering depends upon what is under- 

 stood by the term, i call my bees very quiet, 

 yet I don't think there is ever a time when 

 you can not hear a low murmur, something 

 like the wind gently soughing through the 

 pines. 



But what's the use of your getting "dizzy" 

 over varying opinions. You seem to have a 

 fair understanding with your bees, and so long 

 as they winter all right for you, never mind 

 about anything else. 



2. When E. R. Root objects to my tent es- 

 cape for the reason that the young bees are 

 unable to get back to the hive, I suspect he 

 is theorizing without having consulted the bees 

 about the matter. At any rate, with many 

 years' experience in a wholesale way there 

 never has been any such trouble "in this local- 

 ity." But even if there was, it would have 

 no bearing on the case of dumping bees off 

 by tne pendulum plan, for they are dumped 

 on the ground directly in front of the hive, 

 and can easily crawl in. If the queen hap- 

 pens to be on the comb, she crawls in, too. 

 Still, it is not very often that a comb is 

 bumped on which the queen is likely to be. 



3. I have an impression that it has been 

 tried, but probably without finding it any great 

 advantage. 



4. For a 4^i section I use a top starter 3^ 

 inches deep and a botttom-starter §^ deep. 

 That would leave a space of H between the 

 two starters: but the edges are melted away a 

 little in fastening the foundation in the sec- 

 tions, making the space a little larger. If I 

 should make any difference, it would be to have 

 the space smaller instead of larger, as the bees 

 more promptly fasten together the two starters 

 if the space is small. 



5. On the bottom. Looks more symmetrical, 

 and stays in place a little better. 



6. I don't see that cutting soon or late has 

 anything to do with leaving a queenless col- 

 ony, so long as you leave one cell intact. 

 If you cut sooner than 5 or 6 days after the 

 issuing of the prime swarms, other cells may 

 be started. If you cut later than a week later, 

 an afterswarm may get the start of you. But 

 wouldn't you do better to let the bees destroy 

 the cells? In most places they will do so if 

 you proceed thus: When the prime swarm is- 

 sues, set it in place of the old hive on the 

 old stand, and set the old hive close beside it. 

 A week later move the old hive to a new 

 place 5 feet or more away. That's all; the bees 

 will do the rest. 



7. Yes, indeed. 



8. If any reasonable amount of a wing was 

 cut off, the bees could not have gone off with 

 the queen. But they may have gone into an- 

 other hive close by. especially if at that hive 

 there was unusual commotion, as of swarming. 

 Or, at the same time that they swarmed 

 out another swarm may have issuea in the 

 same apiary, perhaps a little afterswarm, and 

 the two may have united and sailed away. 

 Even if no other colony were within a mile, 

 a stray swarm from more than a mile away 

 may have come along just as the bees in ques- 

 tion deserted their hive, and the rest would 

 be easy. And then — some other may be the 

 right answer to the conundrum. 



9. A colony may sometimes be so still that 

 no sound will be heard when the ear is placed 

 close to the entrance, but I don't think any 

 colony in my cellar will usually be found so. 

 Even the quietest colony seems to have spells 

 of waking up, and turning over in bed, so to 

 speak. Where 20 or more colonies are in the 

 same cellar, if they act as my bees do, you 

 don't need to put your ear to a hive to hear 

 the hum. Go at any time and stand in the 

 inside doorway in my cellar, and you must 

 be hard of hearing if you can not hear the 

 bees. Possibly I am more easily satisfied than 

 1 ought to be, but I am in the habit of count- 

 ing such things normal, and I really enjoy 

 hearing the drowsy hum. 



10. AH things considered, I prefer to use a 

 plain wood separator, sliced or sawed, with no 

 slots or scallops. 



11. Theoretically, it ought to be better to 

 have such holes; practically, I doubt if it would 



egard to cleaning with lye. Miss Wil- 



^^ith 



