1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



427 



and so still that we carried all of the 34 colo- 

 nies, that I put into the house, without closing 

 the wide entrance in both front and rear, and, 

 I believe, without a single bee taking wing; 

 and some colonies remained several hours be- 

 fore they found that they were at liberty and 

 flew out. 



We found group 2. with board covers raised 

 slightly, in about the same condition as No. 1, 

 except, I must confess, in just a little better 

 condition, taken as a whole. The hives, combs, 

 and bees, were all one could ask; and it speaks 

 volumes for top ventilation. I never removed 

 all these hives from the cellar until the 12th of 

 May. but found the swarms all right at that 

 date. This seems too late in the season to ex- 

 pect good results; but as the willows, box- 

 woods, and soft maples are just coming into 

 bloom, and as clover is booming on every hand, 

 the people at the Forestville apiary are cheer- 

 ful, and full of confidence for the futun' of the 

 honey business. The 12 colonies in my little 

 house- apiary had two d(nid swarms that were 

 entirely out of stores. The colonies with 

 enough honey wintered in this most trying of 

 winters, in which they never flew from the 

 hives for i^^ months, in a more perfect condi- 

 tion than colonies in the cellar. The hives, 

 combs, and bees, were without dampness or 

 mold, and some of the bottom-boards were en- 

 tirely free from dead bees. I can say, I believe 

 truly that I lost 19 colonies this winter in fur- 

 ther testing sealed covers. I first thought that 

 they had starved; but we have just finished 

 cleaning up the hives and combs, and found 

 every hive with an abundance of sealed stores. 

 I have long believed that the proper prepara- 

 tion of the hives for winter is the key to safe 

 wintering in a good cellar: and I am thorough- 

 ly convinced that, except to keep out mice and 

 other intruders, hives with the covers entirely 

 removed, or with a single thickness of burlap 

 or cotton sheeting spread over the hives, is bet- 

 ter than any cushion or cover of any kind. My 

 next choice is building-paper. With this I 

 have not a single fault to find, after yeai's of 

 use. except the trouble of putting it on: and if 

 I were going to use light covers I should prefer 

 it to the best absorbent cushion you could make 

 with any material I am acquainted with. 



I visited a bee-keeper at Dover. Minn., last 

 March, who has been very successful in winter- 

 ing. He leaves his hives entirely without cov- 

 ers. For full particulars of this visit, see the 

 Bee-keepers' Review for May. page 129. 



I see in a late issue of Gleanings that Mr. 

 Foster, of Mt. Vernon, Towa. has been visiting 

 an Iowa bee-keeper who has been very success- 

 ful in wintering with a single thickness of cot- 

 ton sheeting spread over the hives: and those 

 who have read the early writings of M. Quinby 

 will remember that, before he adopted the 

 movable frame, he wintered his box hives in a 

 dark room, turned upside down, and left en- 

 tirely uncovered; and I do not believe that 

 there is a better way to-day. 



This may seem to be a long report to make on 

 wintering at this time of year; but I have just 

 received a letter from a Minnesota bee-keeper 

 who has lost all his bees. 253 colonies, this win- 

 ter, and I am convinced that 7.5 per cent of all 

 the bees in this section are dead to-day. So 

 you see wintering is a vital question: and there 

 is no better time to impress people with it than 

 when they are just feeling their heavy losses. 



Forestville, Minn., May 13. B. Taylor. 



[We have read over your article with more 

 than ordinary interest, and we are inclined to 

 believe you are right, in the main: and yet 

 there is H. R. Boardman, who invariably uses 

 sealed board covers, and who has uniformly 



good success in cellar wintering. But he leaves 

 the bottoms of the hives off entirely. It is very 

 possible that a large amount of bottom ventila- 

 tion secures very nearly the same results as top 

 ventilation with bottom-board on the hive as 

 in summer. We should be pleased to have Mr. 

 Boardman review this whole matter, for we 

 believe no one is more competent to speak on 

 this question than he, unless it is our energetic 

 friend B. Taylor. Dr. A. B. Mason has winter- 

 ed successfully in his cellar for years, with or- 

 dinary tight bottom -boards, with the usual 

 entrance, the top of the hives being covered 

 loosely with an ordinary sheet of duck. You 

 may remember tliat, three or four years ago, he 

 reported some quite phenomenal results in win- 

 tering on this plan. Perhaps Dr. Mason can 

 give us some suggestions also.J 



FRTJIT-BLOOM FERTILIZATION. 



THE INDISPENSABLE PART THAT BEES PLAY IN 

 THE MATTER. 



This question has been sent in for me to an- 

 swer: " Do you think apple and pear trees 

 would yield more fruit if bees were kept on the 

 same farm? I have two orchards, with no bees 

 kept within three miles of them, although I 

 keep a few bees where I live. Every condition 

 that I can think of seems to be favorable sur- 

 rounding these orchards, unless it is that no bees 

 are near, yet the trees do not yield well, and I 

 thought that it might be on account of scarcity 

 of bees during the blossoming period." 



As this is a question of importance to nearly 

 every reader of Gleanings, I will answer it 

 through your columns, Mr. Editor, if you will 

 permit me to do so. By way of replying to the 

 above. I wish to say first, that there is no doubt 

 ihat the great and first purpose for which bees 

 were created was for aiding in the fertilization 

 of flowers of different kinds; the honey part as 

 a food, and as a delicacy for man, comes in as 

 secondarv, although but very few think of the 

 matter in this way. A few years ago, while 

 riding on a crowded stage some distance from 

 home, one of the passengers began a tirade 

 against the bees of a certain bee-keeper who 

 lived in his vicinity, telling how they were in- 

 juring the fruit in his section, and how the 

 farmers about him could not secure a large yield 

 of buckwheat very often, on account of the bees 

 kept by this man sucking all of the honey na- 

 ture provided for the maturing of this grain out 

 of it while the berry was in the embryo form 

 in the blossom. When he had finished speaking, 

 he showed by his countenance that bethought 

 his wisdom along these lines much superior to 

 that of any of the other passengers: and from 

 different remarks it appeared tnat the most of 

 those about him indorsed what he said. There 

 was no one in the stage whom I knew or who 

 knew me. so I saw that I had a chance to cor- 

 rect a wrong impression without being accused 

 of selfishness on my part; consequently, in sub- 

 stance, I said that I did not consider the ideas 

 advanced by my friend as sound; that I believ- 

 ed the honey was placed in plants for the ex- 

 press purpose of enticing the bees to plants and 

 flowers which needed the bees for fertilization 

 purposes. To this end. I continued, we find 

 honey (or nectar) secreted only in such flowers 

 as are incapable of self-fertilization; while 

 those being capable of being fertilized through 

 the agency of the wind, etc., secrete no nectar 

 to entice the bees. As an example, we Sv^e 

 wheat, oats, barley, corn, and herd's-grass, all 

 capable of being fertilized by the rustling of 

 their stalks by the gentle breeze, and none of 



