irtjfj BEJ^-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



14y 



al)oat tindiug better methods. After Bome 

 inquiry I learued of the " .V B C of Bee Cul- 

 ture " aud " (ileaniugs," aud the uext sea- 

 son I Pent to A. I. Root fur a nucleus and an 

 Italian queen in a Simplicity hive. About 

 this time 1 found the "bee fever " running 

 pretty high, and I kept subscribing for other 

 bee journals until I was reading five of them, 

 as well as several standard books on bees. 

 I would like right here to offer a word of 

 thanks to the editors of our practical bee- 

 journals, for the very great pains they have 

 taken to give us good journals. I know I 

 owe a large per cent of my success as a bee 

 keeper to the help of the bee journals. I 

 would advise every person that wishes to 

 secure a profit from their bees, to read from 

 year to year two or three of the best ones. 



But to return. As much as I liked to work 

 with the bees, my time was divided with 

 other work, as I owned a saw-mill aud shin- 

 gle-factory for a number of years. The last 

 five or six years the bees have received more 

 of my attention, some years giving me such 

 a surplus that I have shipped it by the ton 

 over thirteen hundred miles. The later per- 

 iod I have also been engaged in growing 

 small fruits to the extent of from two to 

 four acres yearly. 



The raspberry fruits when in blossom 

 have proven a great lielp to the bees, keep- 

 ing them busy between the orchard, fruit- 

 blossom, and white clover. Although I 

 have found one draw-back in some seasons, 

 as the bees work on the raspberry bloom 

 ( from which they obtain dark honey ) at 

 the same time they work on clover. 



I wmter the greater part of my bees ( TiG 

 colonies last winter ) in the cellar tiered up 

 a la Boardman, generally without loss. The 

 cellar is under the dwelling and quite long, 

 with two brick partitions running across, 

 dividing the cellar into three nearly equal 

 parts, the bees occupying the central part, 

 over which is our living room, kept warm 

 by a coal stove whicli helj)* to keep the bee- 

 cellar somewhat drier, ^n rerj/ cold weath- 

 er I start a fire in a stove in the back cellar, 

 the kitchen chimney reaching below for the 

 purpose. 



To allow the heat to enter the bee-cellar I 

 open the door slightly and keep the temper- 

 ature from going down, rather than wait 

 until it falls and then n-f' more heat to 

 bring it up. The winter of '9^-o I had con- 

 siderable celery in the front cellar that was 

 likely to freeze, and to prevent it I opened 



wide the door from this intqr the back cellar 

 where the fire was, allowing the heat from 

 the stove to pass right through the bee-cel- 

 lar into the room where the celery was. I lost 

 heavily that winter, some fifteen per cent, 

 the heaviest loss being on the end the near- 

 est the door where the heat passed through. 

 I would not like to dispense with the occa- 

 sional heat on account of its drying power, 

 aside from its use in keeping a uniform 

 temperature. 



Nearly every year that I have practised 

 cellar wintering, (eleven or twelve) I have 

 kept some out in the bee-yard, some in sin- 

 gle-walled and some in double-walled chafif 

 hives. I have also tried the clamp or un- 

 derground plan, but the loss of scores of 

 colonies have caused me to prefer cellar 

 wintering to any of the above. I have win- 

 tered a number of colonies in chafif hives in 

 the cellar for a number of times but they 

 did not seem to come through in as good 

 condition as those in single-wall hives. I 

 have tried outer cases and chafif packing 

 for four or five years for a part of the col- 

 onies in the spring after taken out of the 

 cellar, but havn't found it to pay. 



I wintered sixteen last winter as follows : 

 After bringing them from the out-yard I 

 set them down in two rows on plank raised 

 up from the ground some six oreight inch- 

 es. The rows ran north and south, en- 

 trances face feast and west, the hives were 

 placed back to back and about two or three 

 inches apart, which gives each colony their 

 entrance a little farther from theirneighbor. 

 A space of about six inches was then 

 made with boards (except the first board 

 was placed against the front of the hives 

 over the entrances and out at the top enough 

 to make the space six inches ) which was 

 filled with chaff and as much or more over 

 the top: the spaces between the hives were 

 also filled. Above all a good roof of boards 

 was put on leaving several inches of space 

 above the packing. I also left about two 

 inches of space at the top of the outside 

 walls just underneath the roof for plenty of 

 circulation of air right over the packing. 

 They seem to have wii^tered well. But I 

 notice this trouble: the bees on the east side 

 do not get so much warmth from the sun 

 as those on the w^st side, consequently 

 those on the west sidd, in taking their flight 

 in the afternoon, are flying more freely, 

 making a much louder hum at the entrances, 

 thus causing the bees from the east side> 



