426 



GLEANINGS IN IJEE CULTURE. 



June 1. 



SiMMiNS has made a decided Improvement ia 

 his non-swarming plan. Formerly the plan 

 was to have the bees always building comb be- 

 tween the brood-nest and the entrance, as fast 

 as the bees built the comb, cutting it out and 

 fitting it into sections. Now he puts sections 

 under instead of brood -combs, then raises the 

 sections when well started. 



Hutchinson disputes Simmins' idea that 

 comb honey will always be a luxury, and ex- 

 tracted come into general use. Hutchinson 

 says comb honey is nearer a staple than ex- 

 tracted, the latter competing with cheap syr- 

 ups. But will not that very competition, by 

 bringing down the price, do just so much 

 toward making extracted a staple? 



The New York exhibit of honey at the 

 World's Fair proves clearly that comb honey 

 can be kept from one year to another in good 

 condition. It can be seen there by the ton just 

 as white and nice as when taken from the 

 hives. The only secret about it is that it was 

 kept in a room heated all winter to about 50 

 degrees. In a flush season, with very low 

 prices, it might pay to hold honey over in this 

 way. 



CELLAR WINTERING. 



THE RESULTS OF SOME INTERESTING AND VAL- 

 UABLE EXPERIMENTS MADE BY B. TAYLOR; 

 UPWARD VENTILATION A SUCCESS; 

 SEALED COVERS A ^-AILURE. 



Editor Oleanings :— Nearly all apiarists agree 

 that successful wintering is one of the most 

 important questions connected with bee-keep- 

 ing. There is more loss from failure in winter- 

 ing than from all other causes combined. 

 There has always been much difference of 

 opinion among leading lights as to the real 

 cause of bad wintering. Some apiarists have 

 laid the cause to a lack of ventilation in win- 

 tering-cellars; others, to the excessive supply of 

 pollen; others, to poor food, honey-dew, late fall 

 honey, too much ventilation of hives, too little 

 ventilation; and many other fancies have been 

 brought forward. Lately, sealed covers have 

 been suggested as a great remedy for winter 

 troubles. Books have been printed and widely 

 advertised, recommending this new discovery. 

 This new theory was from the first, to my 

 mind, contrary to both theory and practical 

 experience; yet I gave it a thorough trial, only 

 to meet with severe loss. 



In the fall of 1893 I resolved to begin a series 

 of more careful experiments in regard to the 

 part that the preparation of hives themselves 

 plays in wintering. I had what I now have 

 reason to believe to be a fact— a wintering- 

 cellar as nearly perfect as present knowledge 

 permits; hence any cause of loss would be in 

 the condition of the colonies and hives them- 

 selves, and not in the place in which they were 

 kept; so I resolved to try several plans of pre- 

 paring the hives for winter. 



No. 1.— I prepared 25 hives as follows, and 

 placed them in one division of my new cellar. 

 I gave each colony two sections of my double 

 hive. I removed two combs from each section, 

 leaving eight in each. These eight combs were 

 spread to fill the ten frame hive. The hives 

 were raised two inches from the bottom-board. 

 When all was quiet, a square of light cotton 

 cloth was spread over each hive, and on top of 

 this was placed a shallow box three inches 

 deep, full of sawdust. The entrances at the 

 bottom were left open the entire width of the 

 hive, front and rear. Now, remember, these 

 swarms were each left on sixteen combs in two 

 sections of a shallow hive, thus making very 



roomy quarters. Each had large stores of 

 sealed honey, mostly in upper sections. The 

 temperature was about 43°, without 3° of vari- 

 ation. 



No. 3. — I next prepared 35 hives, exactly as in 

 No. 1, except that the solid hive-covers were 

 left on, and then four thin slips of wood, 2*5 of 

 an inch thick, were put under each corner of 

 the cover, raising it slightly from the hive-top 

 and leaving a little ventilating crevice on all 

 sides of the top of the hives. They were placed 

 in the same apartment of the cellar as No. 1. 

 In the other apartment of the cellar 20 hives 

 were placed, with sealed covers on, just as the 

 bees left them. The covers were J4 solid boards, 

 and the hives were full, brood-chambers hold- 

 ing 10 combs, 8x133^ inches inside of frames. 

 They were raised 3 inches from the bottom - 

 boards. They were good swarms, with plenty 

 of stores; were put in at the same time as the 

 others, and kept at the same temperature, 43°, 

 as the others. 



April 6, in an article for the Bee-keepers'' Re- 

 view, I wrote, in regard to groups Nos. 1 and 2: 



These bees have remained quieter the entire win- 

 ter than any llkr quantity lever 1< new, and I ex- 

 amined them to-day ( Aiiril (Jth) and the colonies are 

 all alive and ahsnltdrlii quirt. There is not a speck 

 of dysentery on one of the white hives, and there 

 have been fewer dead bees on the cellar bottom 

 than I ever liad from a like nutaber of colonies. 

 These bees are still in the cellar, and at present it 

 looks like a case of perfect winterinij; but it does not 

 prove tliat tliey miglit not have wintered equally 

 well without covers of any kind, and with less work 

 in preparing-. 



At the time of writing the above there was a 

 day or so of fine weather, and I commenced to 

 move my bees from the cellar to the summer 

 stands; but I had the good luck to get out only 

 10 swarms the first afternoon. Next morning 

 the weather had changed to cold and stormy, 

 and continued so until the 30th, when snow fell 

 to the depth of 15 inches, and from that date 

 until May 8th there was not a day in which I 

 could safely put out the bees. Let me here say, 

 that, in ray article of April 6, I reported, in 

 mentioning the 30 colonies with sealed covers, 

 "They have becMi more restless than those cov- 

 ered with porous covers. The hives are damp 

 and unsatisfactory, and more bees have flown 

 to the cellar floor." Early in May I became 

 alarmed for the safety of my bees. The weath- 

 er continued so cold I dared not put them out, 

 and I found several dead; but the colonies con- 

 tinued very quiet, without the least sign of 

 dysentery, and on Mav 6th I began to put them 

 out. As those lots, Nos. 1 and 3, were very 

 quiet, I began in the south half of my cellar, in 

 which the 30 colonies were. There were some 

 50 colonies in this part also, in double hives of 

 my old double brood-chamber hives, with 

 combs only 4)^ inches deep. The covers on 

 these were raised slightly with thin slip'* of 

 wood, like group No. 2. We found these bees 

 in good condition; only about 10 per cent were 

 dead from starvation. 



We next went to the 30 hives with sealed 

 covers, and 19 out of the 30 were dead. The 

 hives contained stores in plenty; but the hives 

 and combs were soaked with water, and the 

 combs nearly rotten with mold. Nearly the 

 whole colony of dead bees was on the bottom- 

 boards, in a stinking, disgusting mass. The 

 weather continued fair, and on May 8th we 

 began to remove group No. 1 to the new house- 

 apiary. These colonies had about 5 per cent 

 loss by starvation; but the bulk of them, seeing 

 they had been confined without a flight for six 

 months and four days, were all that one could 

 wish. The hives and combs were dry and 

 clean. Many of the bottom-boards were nearly 

 as clean as in summer; the bees were bright, 



