1895 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



101 



others for comb hone}/." Then get somebody 

 of experience on the other side (like Dadant) to 

 answer Mr. France's point in detail. We are 

 not through with the hive discussion yet. 



Put the case of a man who winters his bees on 

 the summer stands: How much lifting will he 

 have to do, ordinarily? The argument of 

 weight has been made too much of. It is not a 

 general, but a special consideration. 



Arvada, Col., Dec. 24. F. L. Thompson. 



[Mr. France has already set forth his views 

 on this que-Jtion — see page 4.5. Jan. ir)th issue. 

 Yes. we should he glad to have the Dadants re- 

 view this whole question from their standpoint, 

 if they will. For many years they championed 

 large hives alone. Now that there are more 

 on their side, perhaps they can set forth their 

 views with more assurance. — Ed. J 



Ulllll III il Ihlll I, J |i II II 



'ANSWERS TO 



lll|i|UIIII|iHlllllllli1l" 



BY G.M.DOOLITTLE.BORODINO.N.Y. 



GUAKDTNG AGAINST STAHVATION. 



QuestUtn. — What is the best way to guard 

 against bees starving before feeding can be 

 done in the spring? I have fears that my bees 

 have not honey enough to carry them through 

 till warm weather comes. 



Aiixwer. — As our (|uestioner asks for " the 

 best way to guard against bees starving," I am 

 inclined to answer that the heat way is to know 

 that each colony has sufficient honey or stores 

 in the fall to last it till the flowers bloom in 

 the spring; and if we know this we need have 

 no fears as to their safety along this line. But 

 some one will ask, " How much stores should 

 each colony have that I may know that there 

 is no danger of starvation?" That is right; 

 ask all such questions you like, for in former 

 years it was just such little things as these 

 which bothered me, and, strange to say, these 

 little things, as most bee-keepers call them, 

 were the hardest questions to find answered in 

 our bee- papers. I hunted through volumes 

 before I could find the amount, given by any 

 writer, that it would take to winter a colony of 

 bees safely from October till May, doing this 

 hunting in the columns of the bee-papers pub- 

 lished prior to 187."). The amount which I 

 found first, gave 35 lbs. of actual stores as be- 

 ing the right amount of food necessary to 

 carry a colony through. This almost staggered 

 me, as I had found by weighing the combs of 

 honey in each hive, that not one of my colonies 

 contained that amount, while very few con- 

 tained 30 lbs. So I kept on looking, when, 

 after a while, I found another writer giving 25 

 lbs. as sufficient to winter a colony which was 

 to stay all winter on its summer stand, and 20 

 lbs. for those colonies which were to be winter- 

 ed in the cellar, during the four months of the 

 coldest weather. "Here," said I, "is some- 



thing worth more to me, .lust at this time, than 

 all I have paid out for bee-papers up to the 

 present;" for had I been obliged to make the 

 stores in all my colonies up to 35 lbs., the sugar 

 would have cost me much more than all I had 

 l)aid out for bee-books and paper so far. 



To digress a little, I wish to say that hardly a 

 year passes, even after I have been constantly 

 reading up bee-literature for the past 25 years, 

 but that I find something during the year that 

 is of more value to me than all the bee-papers 

 have cost me for that 25 years, and yet not a 

 fourth of the bee-keepers in the United States 

 take any bee-paper. I never could understand 

 this penny-wise-and-pound-foolish plan that so 

 many adopt when you urge them to take one or 

 more bee-papers. But to return: 



By exchanging combs with my colonies I was 

 enabled to give each colony wintered outdoors, 

 25 lbs., and 20 lbs. to those wintered in the cel- 

 lar, and found all came out well; so I set these 

 figures down as the right amount of stores for 

 safe wintering from flowers in the fall to flowers 

 giving honey in the spring; and to-day, about 

 17 years having passed since I read that state- 

 ment, I would advise the above amounts as be- 

 ing correct for the beginner to put as the stan- 

 dard. But it will be noted that our correspond- 

 ent does not say from flowers to flowers, but 

 till " feeding can be done in the spring." Well, 

 how much is needed in this case? This is 

 something different, and something not often 

 spoken about, yet it is something we should 

 like to know about; for I claim that, if there is. 

 any time when it is profitable to feed colonies 

 to keep them from starving, it is in the spring 

 of the year. Why ? Because if we let them 

 die now we lose all they have consumed thus 

 far; and, besides, feeding in the spring gets the 

 colony in the very best possible shape to give a 

 big yield of honey during the honey harvest; 

 and as this latter is conceded by all, it is often 

 to our advantage to reserve the feeding neces- 

 sary to be done to give sufficient stores during- 

 April and May, till April and May arrive, pro- 

 viding we can know that no colony will starve 

 before that time. One fall I found my colonies 

 quite light; and as I was short of money to buy 

 sugar with, I allowed only 18 lbs. to each col- 

 ony designed to be wintered on its summer 

 stand, and from 12 to 14 for those to be placed 

 in the cellar, and found, by equalizing the 

 stores in all, that I did not have to feed that 

 fall. From a trial of this amount for ten differ- 

 ent winters, and not having a single colony 

 starve or require feeding before April first, I 

 lately let all colonies go into winter quarters 

 that have 12 and 18 lbs. respectively, and feed 

 all that are short in the spring where neces- 

 sary, but so far have had to feed but very few 

 at all. 



But we will suppose that our colonies have 

 been neglected in the fall from a lack of knowl- 

 edge of just how many pounds each colony^ 



