1879 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



351 



the truth, they are so covered up that I 

 could not open and overhaul them if I 

 would, and perhaps that is one secret of 

 their prosperity. Day before yesterday, 

 while I was walking near the hive, a bit of 

 chaff flew out of the entrance as if impelled 

 by a draft of wind. "Halloo!" said I, "have 

 you really become so strong as to send out a 

 current of air for ventilation?" and I ap- 

 proached and held the back of my hand be- 

 fore the entrance. Sure enough, there was 

 a steady, strong blast, and what astonished 

 me more, it was so warm that it seemed al- 

 most as if it must come from an oven. 



lat once proceeded to my other hives, and 

 not a breath of air could be perceived com- 

 ing from the entrance of even the strongest. 

 I went back to the Q. hive and pushed my 

 hand down into the chaff, and long before it 

 reached the bees, the warmth was very ap- 

 parent ; as I touched the cloth that covered 

 the combs I made the remark that I must 

 have touched the cluster ; but as I slid my 

 hand to the other end of the hive and then 

 over and around the sides, I was obliged to 

 admit that the cluster either filled 8 of the 

 large Q. frames, or that the chaff had the 

 astonishing property of so confining the heat 

 that the whole hive was warmed up to a 

 temperature that reminded one of handling 

 a sitting hen. Perhaps it would be well to 

 state here just how the hive was prepared 

 last fall. The hive is wide enough inside to 

 hold 16 frames side by side, and the side 

 boards are tall enough to hold 16 more set 

 on top of the lower ones. Well, the direc- 

 tions Mr Q. sent with the hive were, to re- 

 move all but 8 of the frames for winter, and 

 to turn these 8 frames at right angles from 

 their usual position, so that, when set in the 

 middle of the hive, there would be a space 

 of about 4 inches left on all sides for the 

 chaff, etc., and over the top of the frames, a 

 space of nearly a foot. Now if a Quinby 

 hive prepared in this way will always winter 

 like this one, why has the plan been aban- 

 doned V I once wrote in regard to the. matter 

 to Mr. Elwood, I think, and if I am cor- 

 rect, his reply was that the plan did not suc- 

 ceed so well generally as wintering in the 

 cellar. At all events, in Mr. Q's neighbor- 

 hood, the plan of out- door packing seems to 

 have been pretty generally abandoned in 

 favor of cellar wintering, notwithstanding 

 the hive used (Q.) is most excellently adapted 

 to being packed. Now I cannot help won- 

 dering why they failed. If it were possible 

 to have 100 stocks in the condition of this 

 one, by the 1st of May, bee-keeping would 



be perfectly "splendid", as the little girls 

 say; and such colonies would be cheap, 

 even if it cost $10.00 to put them in the nec- 

 essary condition in the fall. If our friend 

 Townley can and does winter a whole apia- 

 ry in this way every time, why have others 

 failed? It is true, our friend Butler did in- 

 sist that I was stubborn in the matter, 

 and perhaps I would better own up that I 

 was and beg his pardon, for he certainly has 

 been quite successful. 



For the benefit of those who did not have 

 Vol. Ill, I will say that, in obedience to 

 friend Townley's commands, after turning 

 the frames around as mentioned, I covered 

 them with a common grain bag, cut up, ex- 

 pressly to have every thing just as he said, 

 and then poured in and packed all around 

 the bees about 5 bushels of oat chaff. Of 

 course, I made a passage to the entrance, by 

 laying a shingle over a couple of i inch 

 sticks. To get at the truth of this matter, I 

 am going to waste some time and — chaff. 

 In fact, I have already taken one of the 

 weak colonies that was likely to die, stood 

 the L. frames on end, slipped a grain bag 

 over all, put on an upper story, and filled 

 both with chaff. They haven't got "hot" 

 yet, but perhaps it needs more than a i pint 

 of bees for such an experiment. The swarm 

 1 have been talking about is the one that 

 came from the suspended hive, July 24th, 

 last year, and as I tried again to get them to 

 fill the Quinby boxes, and they would not, 

 they had every frame full of stores. I let 

 them have it all, thinking I would try for 

 orTce the consequences of too much food, if 

 such a thing is possible. 



I am now going to have for my next hob- 

 by, hives crammed full of stores and no tin- 

 kering during cool, or cold weather ; no di- 

 viding until natural swarming commences, 

 and if honey is the object, perhaps no divid- 

 ing or swarming at all, if it can be avoided. 

 No extracting until the combs below are 

 filled to their utmost, and no extracting 

 under any circumstances that may render it 

 necessary to feed the same back again. Of 

 all the blunders in bee culture I think there 

 are few greater than fussing to get the hon- 

 ey out of the combs where it is nicely sealed 

 up, and then fussing, at still greater lengths, 

 to get it back into the same combs and 

 sealed up in the same way, if we can. "And 

 give up feeding?" At present I would give 

 up feeding, at least where one has as much 

 to do as I have. Why, just think of it ! the 

 best colony in our apiary has not had one 

 minute's time expended on it for the past 



