72 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 1 



General 

 Correspondence 



ABSORBENTS VS. SEALED COVERS. 



How Much Packing shall we Use? an In- 

 teresting Discussion of the Whole 

 Problem of Outdoor Wintering. 



BY LEON C. WHEELER. 



Mr. Editor: — On page 786 you make the 

 following statement in reply to a letter from 

 Chas. G. Macklin: 



" Our experience has been practically the 

 same as yours." "We can not understand 

 why any one should get better wintering re- 

 sults by the use of damp, wet, or (worse 

 yet) frozen absorbents." 



It appears to me, Bro. Root, that you are 

 taking an unfair position here, for you as- 

 sume something which, in my experience at 

 least, is not a fact, and then from that as- 

 sumption draw erroneous conclusions. Be- 

 cause unsuccessful outdoor winterers find 

 their absorbent cushions damp or frozen it 

 does not necessarily signify that the success- 

 ful winterer must have those conditions 

 simply because he uses one principle used 

 by the unsuccessful man. 



One thing must always be taken into con- 

 sideration oefore deciding on any method 

 regarding the handling of bees; and that is, 

 that we are not dependent on one feature 

 of the management alone, but that every 

 condition and every requirement must be 

 the same in all other parts of the hive to 

 make the test complete. 



This is none the less true in regard to a 

 decision of the relative merits of the hermet- 

 ically sealed hive or the one allowing free 

 upward ventilation. 



It would give me great pleasure, Bro. 

 Root, to have you come and make an exam- 

 ination of my bees at any time this winter, 

 and see if you can find any dampness in any 

 of them; and there is not one hermetically 

 sealed hive in the yard. You would proba- 

 bly find it to a certain extent in a few of 

 them; and now let me describe the hives in 

 which you would find it. 



They are double-walled hives with a two- 

 inch packing space, and with a cover only 

 six to eight inches deep — not far from the 

 dimensions of the Root chaff hive, I believe. 

 If I were compelled to use that kind of hive 

 in this climate I would go one step further 

 than Bro. Root, and say it is impossible to 

 winter out of doors successfully any way. 



My father-in-law, who has kept bees near- 

 ly forty years, has always wintered princi- 

 pally in chaff hives, and is ranked to-day as 

 one of the three most successful outdoor 

 winterers in this State, and he has never 

 used sealed covers on any of them; but he 

 does not use standard chaff hives. The hive 

 that he uses is made with sides four inches 

 deeper than the inside hive, and a cover 

 eight to twelve inches high — making a pack- 



ing space above the bees of not less than 

 twelve inches, and with an outside packing 

 space of from four to six inches. 



When he persuaded me to go into the bee 

 business on a small scale six years ago he 

 sent over a couple of these hives. These 

 two colonies increased to six by fall, and the 

 hives were built of the same style for the 

 other four. Although it was my first expe- 

 rience with bees, every colony wintered per- 

 fectly with free upward ventilation. 



The next year I bought and increased to 

 27 colonies; and as I had learned quite a lot 

 from reading the bee journals I built some 

 hives on the same plan as the Root hives, 

 with a two-inch packing and shallow covers. 

 Well, I saved the 12 colonies wintered in the 

 old-style hive; and, if I remember rightly, 

 about six out of the fifteen wintered m the 

 new hive. Strange to say, I did not learn 

 my lesson thorougnly that winter; but anoth- 

 er winter tried with the sealed covers cook- 

 ed me, for I lost nearly all of them wintered 

 in those hives, and about half of those in the 

 big hives. Notice, I used sealed covers this 

 time. It is only fair to say, however, that 

 some of them were starvation cases, al- 

 though they had the usual amount of stores 

 in the fall. 



Last winter I packed these light packing 

 hives in a second packing of straw with a 

 roof overhead, and they all wintered, al- 

 though they did not come out in as good con- 

 dition as those in large hives. 



My experience as a whole with the large 

 hives is perfect wintering in every instance 

 except the one winter wlien I used sealed 

 covers. With the smaller hives I had imper- 

 fect wintering in every instance; but it was 

 worse the winter I used sealed covers. 



Now about those damp absorbent cush- 

 ions. I have in some instances found them 

 damp in those lightly packed hives, but nev- 

 er in the large hives. What makes the dif- 

 ference? Why, it's as simple as falling off a 

 log. The moisture thrown off by the bees 

 condenses on the cold sides of the hive, on 

 the same principle that steam inside of a 

 house condenses on the windows. Why 

 doesn't it condense on the inside walls of 

 the house as well as on the windows? Sim- 

 ply because the outside air hasn' t the chance 

 to act on the inside walls with sufficient 

 force to make them cold enough. 



Now, this same principle holds good in the 

 bee-hive. The warmer the hive can be 

 made, the less chance for moisture to con- 

 dense in the hive. The heat from the clus- 

 ter being that much closer confined, it will 

 take care of that much" more moisture. 

 Again, a hive packed with only four or five 

 inches overhead, and no air-space above the 

 packing, allows too much of the heat to es- 

 cape in this direction, while a hive admitting 

 six or eight inches packing, and an air-space 

 of about the same aepth above the packing, 

 retains the heat much better. The packing, 

 being warm, does not condense the moisture, 

 but allows it to pass through it into the air- 

 space above, where it is taken care of with- 

 out any detriment to the bees. 



