296 



September, 1916. 



American IBae JonrnaiJ 



I 



large cellars would be required to fur- 

 nish sufficient storage room for cellar 

 wintering. The interest on the money- 

 necessary to build seven such cellars 

 would more than pay all the cost of 

 preparing the bees for winter by the 

 packing plan, lerving capital free for 

 use otherwise and saving depreciation. 

 Thirty-five years of experience in win- 

 tering large numbers of bees by this 

 method offers convincing evidence that 

 for thi< climate no better results are 

 likely to be obtained by any plan yet 

 made public. 



While this method is entirely satis- 

 factory for this latitude and southward, 

 we would hardly recommend it for 

 northern latitudes. Farther north more 

 packing is desirable and an outside 

 winter case is very satisfactory. This 

 adds somewhat to the expense. 



FIG. 2 -LEAVES ARE CORDED IN BIG PILES 



mit the bees to move from one frame 

 to another. If burr combs are not 

 present to serve this purpose a small 

 stick is laid across the frames before 

 the mat is put in place. The big cover 

 is then filled with leaves and placed on 

 the hives, as shown in Fig. 6 In prac- 

 tice it is found that four men can work 

 together with a minimum loss of time. 

 Two men go ahead and place the mats 

 and fill the covers. These are followed 

 by two others who pack the hives on 

 the outside. (Fig 7.) 



For holding the outside packing a 

 small strip of woven wire is used (Fig. 

 8) This encircles the hive as shown 

 in Fig. 8, leaving the front open. Fig. 

 9 shows the final operation oi packing 

 and Fig. 10 shows the hive snug for 

 winter. 



With this system the straw mat and 

 super of leaves absorb the moisture 

 that would otherwise condense within 

 the hive. In ordinary winters the bees 



come through in most excellent condi- 

 tion. In winters when extreme cold 

 prevails for long periods of time, much 

 depends upon the quality of stores. If 

 care is used to see that only good qual- 

 ity honey or sugar syrup is present in 

 the hive, and that no honey-dew or 

 poor honey is left for the winter food 

 supply, the bees will withstand a sur- 

 prising amount of cold and come 

 through nicely. A combination of poor 

 stores and extreme cold is likely to 

 prove disastrous by any method of 



Wintering in tlie West 



BY WESLEY FOSTER. 



IT has been said that we have no win- 

 tering troubles here, and it is partly 

 true, although we do lose 10 percent 

 of our bees every winter. But we also 

 lose 10 percent of our bees from swarm- 

 ing and nearly as much from bee dis- 

 eases. If we saved all of our colonies 

 that we now lose from disease and in 

 wintering, and also saved all swarms 

 that issue and abscond, we would have 

 to either buy many new hives each year 

 or we would have to learn how to pre- 

 serve the full strength of our colonies 

 in the hives that we have, and keep 

 them constantly at work. 



If the swarming will balance the 

 losses we are about even, but not quite. 



FIG 3.-A WAGON LOAD OF LEAVE5 READY TO GO TO THE OUTYARD 



Fig. 5 —Straw Mats are Placed Directly 

 Over the Brood-Frames 



wintering. 



Four men will gather the leaves and 

 pack about loo colonies in a day. If 

 the weather is favorable a force of four 

 men pack the entire 6U0 colonies in 

 the seven Dadant apiaries in one week. 

 It is doubtful whether they could be 

 prepared for winter in shorter time by 

 any other method. Their large hives 

 when full of stores are very heavy and 



The ideal condition is freedom from 

 losses in swarming, disease and winter- 

 ing. This may be done, and is being 

 done, to quite a large extent by a few. 

 We can winter colonies well in 2- 

 story 8-frame hives, so why not unite 

 all colonies headed by old queens with 

 those colonies having young ones ? 

 This will give us the next spring plenty 

 of extra hives for the increase we may 



