October, 1918 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



589 



tions, winter after winter. They say (or 

 rather think) the bees have wintered well; 

 but I am positive that if those same apiaries 

 were surrounded by a good fence, a shelter 

 of trees, or buildings, the colonies in the 

 spring would not only be stronger but would 

 have more stores remaining in the hive. 



I have run across scores of instances in 

 my travels where bees in single-walled hives 

 properly sheltered from prevailing winds 

 have wintered comparatively well. I have 

 also run across scores of instances where 

 colonies in double-walled hives out in the 

 open have wintered very poorly, all because 

 of the lack of a screen to shut off the winds. 

 Take the case of our own houses. It takes 

 much more coal to heat a house with a freez- 

 ing temperature and a high wind than it 



closure in a piece of woods with a south ex- 

 posure. (See Fig. 2.) 



Tlie next best protection is a shelter of 

 buildings. The ordinary Vjack lot in a city 

 or town, with dwellings, barns, outbuildings, 

 fences, and hedges or shrubbery in all direc- 

 tions, is usually an ideal place to winter bees. 



In many cases beekeepers will have to 

 make their own windbreaks, unless they can 

 afford to wait for a row of evergreens to 

 grow, and that takes from 10 to 20 years. 

 A high board fence is a good windbreak and 

 easily built. The boards in the fence should 

 not be placed tight together. Experience 

 proves that it is better to let the wind filter 

 thru slowly than to strike a solid surface 

 and glance upward and then shoot down- 

 ward on some row of hives inside. The fence 



Fi?. 3. — This apiary belongs to Floyd Markham, Ypsilanti, Mich., secretary of the National Beekeepers' 



Association. This yard is surrounded by a fence, small trees, buildings, and is on a slope of ground that 



faces the south. Fh-oni the standpoint of windbreaks it is ideally located; and, altho the season was rather 



poor, it will be seen that the be£s were doing things. 



does on a still day with a zero temperature. 

 Taking everything into consideration, if I 

 had to choose between colonies packed and 

 colonies in single-walled hives sheltered, I 

 would take the latter. As a matter of fact, I 

 much prefer to have both packing and shel- 

 ter. 



Unquestionably the best .form of wind- 

 breaks is second-growth timber, trees with 

 trunks as large around as a man 's arm, and 

 20 to 30 feet tall. R. F. Holtermann told me 

 last summer that the yard that gave him the 

 best results is the one located in the slash- 

 ing where he cut out a little clearing. A 

 photograph of this yard, with 12-frame su- 

 pers piled up one on top of the other, is 

 pretty good proof of the statement. (See 

 Fig. 1.) The next best windbreak is an in- 



shown in Fig. 9 would be much better if 

 the boards were two inches apart. The ideal 

 fence is one made of ten-inch boards placed 

 about two inches apart. It is more practic- 

 able to nail the boards horizontally, as 

 shown in Figs. 4 and 5. In this case the 

 posts should be set every six or eight feet 

 apart, depending on whether the boards are 

 12 or 16 feet long. The fence should not be 

 less than 8 feet high. Some prefer to make a 

 fence like that used by R. F. Holtermann. 

 (See Figs. 6, 7, and 8.) The boards are nail- 

 ed vertically on cross-pieces fastened to the 

 posts. If the fence is more than ten feet 

 high, it would be more practicable and per- 

 haps cheaper to use this style. 



IBelieve me, dear reader, do not get the 

 notion into your head that, because you have 



