350 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



Sept. 



I prepared a hive exactly as he said. It was 

 a fair colony, and they had an abundance of 

 sealed stores, but it was no better than many 

 others. I used an old grain bag, as he had 

 directed, and it was so very old that the bees 

 bit holes through it, and let the chaff sift 

 down into the hive on them. With the ex- 

 ception of this trifling accident and the 

 chaff packing, the bees of this colony had 

 the same treatment as the rest of the apiary. 

 I will give you some extracts from Glean- 

 ings, in regard to this colony and some oth- 

 ers, and bearing directly on this matter of 

 chaff packing. 



The following extracts are taken from Glean- 

 ings in Bee Culture, for 1875-76 : 



Nov. 20th. — "We are trying five hives in the 

 open air ; the Quinby hive which contains 

 about the best colony in the apiary, and 

 would winter well without chaff or anything 

 else ; the Standard hive, which has two col- 

 onies in it ; the hive with the burnt candy ; 

 and two other fair stocks to test the advan- 

 tage of a close hive compared with an open 

 one. One of the latter is to be tucked up 

 snugly with a quilt, and the other is to be 

 put on eight combs in the centre of a two 

 story L. hive, with nothing over or around 

 the bees, except the cover to keep off rain. 

 Both are carefully weighed and neither have 

 been "tinkered" with by late feeding. 

 Double walls and chaff and straw packing 

 have been so much extolled, we wish to try 

 the opposite — no protection at all. 



Feb. 8th. — It is warm again now, but we 

 have just had a zero spell, and our colony 

 that we purposely left with neither sides nor 

 cover to their defenseless heads, except the 

 cover to the upper story to keep off the rain, 

 for the first time this winter seemed to be 

 the worse for such treatment ; in fact, about 

 one-half were cold in death, martyrs to the 

 cause of science. "So bees do really freeze", 

 thought I ; but an examination showed that 

 they did not freeze, they only starved after 

 all ; for on one side of the comb where there 

 was no honey, every one was dead, but on 

 the other where there was an abundance of 

 stores, they were all alive. There was 

 plenty of honey in all the combs except 

 where the dead bees were found; in this 

 there was none for several inches, and to 

 get what there was they were obliged to get 

 out in the cold or over the top of the comb, 

 neither of which they could do during zero 

 weather. Now it may be said that winter 

 passages in the combs would have saved 

 them; but even if they would, it will be 

 cheaper to have plenty of bees, a good, gen- 



erous sized warm quilt nicely tucked up 

 over their heads, and a division board to re- 

 duce the size of the hive for wintering, to as 

 small a space as consistent with an ample 

 supply of food. All the rest of our colonies 

 are in fair trim, and those in the house apia- 

 ry as yet, scarcely seem to feel the winter 

 at all. 



Apr. 28th. — Perhaps the best colony we 

 have, is the one in the Quinby hive that was 

 packed on all sides and over head with chaff, 

 a la Townley. They were so strong they 

 would probably have wintered well any 

 where, for we tried to get them to work in 

 the boxes and failed; consequently they 

 had every thing full of nice, sealed, clover 

 honey. Now I never saw a hive having too 

 much stores, notwithstanding all that has 

 been said about it. I have tried the effect 

 of too little, and know just what it does ; 

 now, I propose trying what the effect of too 

 much will be. Our next best colony is the 

 one in the hoop* hive, and they have been 

 steadily increasing in numbers since Feb. 

 Third best, colony with imported queen, in 

 house apiary, on north side. Cannot see 

 that it makes any difference whether stocks 

 are on north or south side. I should be glad 

 to add that the several dollar's worth of oil 

 that has been used keeping the house apiary 

 warmed for the past month has been of some 

 sort of benefit to the brood, but really, the 

 bees outside that have taken their chances 

 are just about as well off. The colony left 

 with nothing over them finally died outright. 



It is now May 9th, and the bees in the 

 house apiary are going so rapidly that I fear 

 none will be left. Those outside are most 

 of them building up, but a few of the weak- 

 est are yet going down with the well known 

 spring dwindling. Now this Quinby hive 

 that has the chaff over it is, as I have before 

 said, considerably the best colony in the 

 apiary ; they are out first in the morning, 

 and fly when it is cold and rainy, and so far 

 as we can see, have not lost a bee ; to tell 



*This hoop hive was one of my hobbies in 1875. The 

 idea was, to give bees the same amount of ventila- 

 tion in a wood hive, that they would have in a straw 

 one; the hive was therefore made of slats placed at 

 an angle so they would shed rain, but the walls of 

 the hive were less than J4 inch in thickness. Strong 

 colonies wintered in such hives, but they kept away 

 from the thin open walls, not only in winter, but in 

 summer also; for they would not seal comb honey, 

 when placed next to those cool outer walls. A half 

 inch board was next tried, but the bees showed 

 more aversion to that than they did to an inch 

 board. Next, I tried a half inch board with a cush- 

 ion against it, and found the honey was sealed up 

 better next to this, than next to the inch board. 

 From these experiments, demonstrating that chaff 

 cushions are needed in summer as well as winter, 

 the chaff hive was worked out. 



