354 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 



is given briefly in the following editorial, in 

 the May No. of Gleanings, 1877 : 



April 29, '77.— We have sold $250.00 worth of bees 

 out of the 100 colonies reported last month, and have 

 75 good colonies left. Is not that a little better than 

 the reports we have been in the habit of making for 

 the month of April? An income from bees, in the 

 spring, is certainly quite a pleasant thing to have. 

 Hurrah for the chaff cushions! and many thanks to 

 friend Townley. 



The winter of 1877-78 was very mild, and 

 bees wintered well in chaff hives, and in 

 hives of every other kind, so that our bee- 

 keepers, myself among the number, doubt- 

 less got a little careless, and in undertaking 

 to winter small colonies in the same way in 

 the winter of 1878-79, disastrous losses fol- 

 lowed. Strong colonies in chaff hives came 

 out, as a general thing, as strong as they 

 had in the preceding winters, but bees in 

 common hives, and rather weak colonies in 

 chaff hives, fared badly. The general testi- 

 mony from bee-keepers all over our land is 

 so strongly in favor of the chaff hives, that 

 there can be no doubt about their coming 

 into very general use for a winter hive. The 

 Simplicities, from their lightness and con- 

 venience in handling, will always be in 

 great demand for summer work. It is but 

 a moment's work to lift the combs from one 

 into the other. 



WINTERING IN CELLARS OR SPECIAL RE- 

 POSITORIES. 



A few years ago, cellars and special re- 

 positories became all at once very popular, 

 and bee-keepers all over our land, especially 

 in the northern localities, invested much la- 

 bor and money in constructing good, frost 

 proof cellars, or sawdust packed buildings 

 above ground. In 1868, I put up such a 

 building, and packed the walls with 8 inches 

 of sawdust, and also put sawdust between 

 the floors and over head, and wintered 48 

 colonies in it without losing a single one. 

 A neighboring bee-keeper who used one 

 similarly constructed had wintered in his 

 for nearly a dozen years, and, at that time, 

 had never lost a colony in it. These results 

 seemed pretty nearly conclusive ; but a few 

 years later, when the spring dwindling, as 

 it has been called, made its appearance, my 

 neighbor and I both made the discovery, 

 that bees taken out in March, in fair order, 

 would often, in spite of us, become reduced, 

 before the end of April, to a mere handful, 

 and then perish outright, or leave their 

 hives and swarm out as I have mentioned 

 under the head of absconding swarms ; 

 while at the same time, good, strong colo- 



nies left out-doors without any especial 

 care, would often be full of bees and ready 

 to swarm. I do not mean to say that such 

 was generally the case, but there were al- 

 ways more or less in the neighborhood that 

 would winter finely without care, while 

 many so carefully housed would turn out 

 disastrously. A neighbor who had devoted 

 almost his whole time to his bees would be 

 obliged, in spite of his well made bee house, 

 to buy black bees in the spring to keep his 

 Italians alive, and the strong colonies of 

 black bees were invariably wintered almost 

 without loss, in an open shed, in cheap, un- 

 painted, box hives. Even the York state 

 bee-keepers with their splendid cellars built 

 especially for their bees, if I am correct, 

 often used to go off into the country and 

 buy black bees, in the same way, to get an- 

 other start in the spring. It is so difficult to 

 get many of them to report their losses, that 

 I am unable to say whether they do any bet- 

 ter of late years or not. I presume they do, 

 for I should be very sorry to think we were 

 making no progress in this one, great draw- 

 back to bee culture. 



The bee houses answered very well the 

 purpose of protecting the bees from the ef- 

 fects of frost during ordinary winters, but 

 when we happened to have a very severe 

 spell of several days' duration, the walls 

 would collect ice and dampness, in the way 

 I have explained in a former part of this ar- 

 ticle, and when the weather moderated, the 

 melting of this ice made the room damp 

 and unwholesome, in spite of the ventila- 

 ting tubes or anything else that could well be 

 arranged in such a building. If the weath- 

 er came off very warm, as it frequently does 

 even in midwinter, in our locality, the bees 

 would very naturally want to get out, and 

 then ensues a disturbance that is very likely 

 to result in trouble, unless the weather 

 speedily changes. The houses may answer 

 well for one or two winters, or even more, 

 but with the changeable weather we have 

 here, I am forced to consider them more 

 trouble than profit, taking them for a series 

 of years together. To illustrate what we 

 have to contend with, I will mention that in 

 the month of Jan., 1878, we had such a spell 

 of warm weather that dandelions were 

 found in blossom, and the bees raised brood 

 and grew strong almost all the winter 

 through. Well, the winter after, during al- 

 most all the month of Jan., the thermometer 

 stood from 10° to 20° below zero, and the 

 spring being late and cold, the spring 

 dwindling had a "run," almost unknown 



