November, 1918 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



665 



FROM THE FIELD OF EXPERIENCE 



in supers to feed, if you are careful to feed 

 at opposite corners and put a sack around 

 the pail. 



After the feeding is done (in October) I 

 put a large quilt over the individual quilts. 

 For this I cut an old sack down the seam, 

 thus doing away with the loss of time and 

 the muss in cleaning out the shavings when 

 you look thru the hives in spring. Over this 

 quilt I dump in about eight or nine inches 

 of packing, and put on the roof. Then it is 



nificcnt — one hive lost by dysentery, and a 

 small nucleus I was experimenting with, and 

 three queens missing out of 55 hives. Con- 

 sidering the length and severity of last win- 

 ter and the poor care the bees got, I am 

 satisfied with at least some air drainage. 

 This winter I have a windbreak at both 

 ends of the row. In the spring examination 

 I put the top shavings from the No. 1 case 

 in a barrel. The shavings of the second 

 case go in the first, and so on down the line. 



r 





Figr. 



all right till next April, when one just won- 

 ders if he did put in enough sugar at 10 

 cents a pound. These winter cases are left 

 on till the last of May or first of June. Of 

 course, after the settled weather comes in 

 the spring, the top shavings are taken off 

 and stored, and the covers put back upside 

 down until the cases are packed away. Leav- 

 ing the bees packed as long as this would 

 not work as well if they were moved around 

 in unpacking, as by this time the bees have 

 their home spot thoroly localized and their 

 "trade routes" established. The cases are 

 fairly close together, about seven or eight 

 feet between fours; yet each entrance is al- 

 ways within four inches of the same spot, 

 thus saving a lot of confusion. When the cases 

 are first put on or just taken off, the appear- 

 ance of the hive entrance is greatly changed; 

 yet the confusion is only momentary, as the 

 bees alwaj's go to the exact spot regardless 

 of appearances. This is proved by the re- 

 moval of a hive for a while or turning it 

 around, as the bees will come to where the 

 entrance should be. 



As to windbreaks, I think it is quite pos- 

 sible to have too much of a good thing. At 

 our last place I had almost perfect (?) 

 wind protection. The yard was clustered in 

 two rows between two large barns and a 

 dyke on the west side. I found that nearly 

 all my winter losses were in the south row 

 tho it was better protected than the north 

 row. The south row was in the shade of this 

 barn from about October till February and 

 the air was damp and gripping. In this 

 locality the bees were in the open; and last 

 winter, on account of my illness, they had 

 no windbreaks except the two rows of rasp- 

 berry bushes. They were in the full blast of 

 the wind, and in the full sunlight. There 

 was some air drainage. Of course, the hives 

 placed as they were, served to protect each 

 other. The result of this neglect was mag- 



Fig. 3. 



By catching the four corners of the top 

 quilt, after the bulk of the packing is re- 

 moved, one can gather the remainder quick- 

 ly, and leave the hives clean and ready for 

 action. 



As to the cost of the case, I think five 

 or six dollars cheap, when you consider that 

 the individual chaff hive is the only plan 

 api^roaching the quadruple system. Compare 

 the price difference of a good chaff hive over 

 the single hive, and I guess I will take the 

 quadruple cases with the neighborhood 

 spirit and warmth. Chas. Bowden. 



Brantford, Ont. 



Gleanings has taken great interest in the 

 disease of nosema apis. As you know, 

 the disease has played havoc in our country 

 from top to bottom. I am told that within 

 a radius of ten miles scarcely half a dozen 

 hives survived last winter. In November 

 of that winter I put my two hives under 

 cover so that they were kept dry. In Feb- 

 ruary I was horrified to find hundreds of 

 bees, some dead, and others in different 

 stages of exhaustion crawling out from the 

 hives and dropping on the floor, from whence 

 they could not rise. As it was too cold to 

 disturb the bees much, I put a few drops of 

 carbolic acid into some water and scrubbed 

 the excrement from the alighting-boards. 

 This I repeated on several occasions. There- 

 after the bees kept quiet, and I saw nothing 

 more of them until a couple of months later 

 when I found the parent colony well and 

 strong, and the other fairly good. I came 

 to the conclusion that the fumes of the car- 

 bolic acid must have penetrated the hives 

 and disinfected the interior. 



Walter Taylor. 



Formby, Lancaster, England. 



