.S'Kl'TK.MIlKl;. 1918 



G J. E A N I N G S IN H E K (J U h T V K K 



tlie results of |t;irt icularly fa\<ii;ili!i' comli- 

 tioiis' that do not prevail widely, or a i)ar- 

 tieularly liigh degree of skill, or <a happy 

 combination of the two; perhaps for the 

 great majority of Southern beekeepers win- 

 ter packing- would bring about such results, 

 where nothing else would. Unless a bee- 

 keeper is sure — soundly and intelligently 

 sure — that he does not desire colonies any 

 stronger in spring, has no out-and-out win- 

 ter losses worth changing his methods for, 

 and either does not think he could be any 

 more successful, or does not care to be — the 

 correctly progressive thing for him to do is 

 to give this winter packing a trial, as thoro- 

 going a trial as he feels able to give it. 

 The cases are a bit expensive, and that is 

 unfortunate at this time when everything 

 else is expensive. Yet if they pay, they 

 pay, expense and all. 



In the winter of 1917-18 the losses thru- 

 out the South were start liiigly heavy, even 

 among the best beekeepers — (tho I must 

 except L. E. Webb, with his 100 per cent 

 ])erfect wintering). It seems as tho these 

 losses might convince the losers of the ne- 

 cessity of winter protection. Yet most of 

 them re]>ly, " It is honestly cheaper to stand 

 such a loss once in 20 years — for this winter 

 was almost unprecedented — than to equip 

 the whole yard with packing cases, and then 

 ])ack and unptack every fall and spring; and 

 a whole lot easier!'' 



A Probable Solution. 



It may be that the solution of these two 

 almost unreconeilable systems may lie in 

 moderate protection, without full packing, 

 — heavy paper wrappings or shallow supers 

 filled with dry leaves or other material. I, 

 for one, have been encouraged thru the re- 

 sults of a limited exjjeriment to try still 

 further the principle of absorbent covers, 

 placing burlap instead of a sealed cover be- 

 tween the bees and a super of packing. In 

 a rather generous collection of letters that 

 have reached me on the subject of winter- 

 ing, there is one from A. B. Anthony of 

 Sterling, 111. And Mr. Anthony advises 

 thus: Put an extra %-inch wall, painted 

 white, over the bees, without packing, and 

 contract entrances; let the space between 

 this extra box and the hive be % of an 

 inch — protection without packing. Some 

 such middle course may be best here. 



Last fall I put four colonies, two hive 

 bodies each, in a quadrui^le packing case 

 that cost nearly $8.00, and the results were 

 not encouraging. Yet as one swallow does 

 not make a summer, so one packing case 

 does not settle the problem of wintering- 

 bees in the South. From what the federal 

 experts in the South had predicted, I had 

 hoped great things from this jiacking. The 

 fact that the great hopes did not material- 

 ize had to be admitted honestly, yet none 

 but a shallow mind would expect this to set- 

 tle things. I have searched in vain for any 

 reason this ease should have failed so sig- 

 nally in producing the results claimed by its 

 ailvocates. But now Dr. Phillijis has most 



kindly come to my assistance with a friend- 

 ly letter, in which he suggests that the 

 weakness nuiy lie in the entrances. These 

 four entrances, two to the west, two to the 

 east, were contracted, as were all in the 

 3^ard, with the regular contractors that 

 come with the hives — no more. Here let 

 me quote from Dr. Phillips' letter: 



"In Washington, the bees have for ven- 

 tilation, in the dead of winter, a i/^-inch 

 auger hole, and perhaps you will think this 

 is entirely too small; but I suggest that you 

 give it a trial, and, if your results are any- 

 thing like ours, I am sure you will have 

 larger colonies than you have ever seen be- 

 fore in all your beekeeping experience. Dur- 

 ing the fall and spring we give the bees 

 four such auger holes for flight, but dur- 

 ing the colder weather three of these are 

 covered with a piece of section material. 

 Of course it would be absolutely fatal to a 

 colony to reduce the entrance in this way 

 unless the bottom is packed, because the 

 dead bees would accumulate on the bottom- 

 board at the entrance and close the open- 

 ing, causing suffocation. There is one test 

 you can always apply to your bees to see 

 whether they are sufficiently packed. If 

 they are able to carry out the dead bees 

 during- the coldest weather which you have 

 in the winter, and dump these bees on the 

 ground outside the hive, you may be cer- 

 tain that your bees are warm enough. Un- 

 less they are able to do this, and if dead 

 bees accumulate in the bottom, you may be 

 quite certain that it is too cold for them to 

 do housecleaning as they should do, and there- 

 fore they are insufficiently packed. ' ' 



Kennith Hawkins has told me about the 

 Washington bees sauntering- out the front 

 door in midwinter and dropping their dead 

 out in the weather, and I watched in vain 

 to see mine act that way. They never did. 

 Slowly thru the winter the piles of dead 

 grew before the doors of this winter case, 

 but they seemed to be deposited, as with 

 unpacked colQuies, only on flight days. Tho 

 it was surely true that the packed bees did 

 not fly out so often as those not packed, 

 nor did they have so many dead before 

 their entrances. 



What Mrs. Allen WiU Do This FaU. 



Acting- then on Dr. Phillips' suggestion, 

 I shall try these very much contracted en- 

 trances this next fall. And I shall again 

 put shallow supers of leaves (over burlap) 

 on other colonies, with no other packing. 

 And probably I shall try Mr. Anthony 's 

 plan of the double wall with air space be- 

 tween. Still other hives shall remain with 

 nothing different from summer conditions 

 except the contracted entrance. Of course, 

 much of this w^e tried last winter, with nei- 

 ther the quadruple case nor the colonies 

 with supers of leaves above showing any 

 especial advantage, except that those with 

 absorbent covers had no moldy combs, while 

 most of the others did. But in a matter of 

 this kind only a more extended experiment 

 will ever justify a final (onviction. 



