1901 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



683 



bees ; and the frames too are wet with it. Is 

 there not a way to reined)' it ? 



Chas. INIac Donough, Jr. 

 Shokan, N. Y., July 22. 



[The New York State law to which you re- 

 fer is doubtless the one relating to foul brood 

 and other brood diseases. We gave the whole 

 text of it on page 3G5, May 1, 1899. 



1. There are several reasons why the bees 

 may be induced to cluster out : Too small an 

 entrance ; a hive that is not protected from 

 the glaring rays of the sun ; a hive that is too 

 small ; a poor season. Any one of these, es- 

 pecially if there are two or three in combina- 

 tion, will force the bees out of the entrance 

 and cause them to loaf during the day. The 

 remedies are obvious. 



2. No, not unless you can discover the hive, 

 around the entrance of which the bees are act- 

 ing queerly. A few bees will become demor- 

 alized, run about, and there may be a string of 

 bees from the swarm in the air to the entrance 

 of this hive. A practical bee-keeper will oft- 

 en locate the hive from which a swarm has is- 

 sued by the way the bees behave around that 

 particular hive. 



3. Very often a newly hived swarm will 

 come out again, not once, but two or three 

 times after they have been hived. It is usu- 

 ally advisable to give swarms a frame of un- 

 sealed brood, with a little honey ; but even 

 then they will sometimes come forth. It is 

 then advisable to hive them in an entirely 

 different location — one that is well shaded, 

 and in a hive that is roomy, with a large en- 

 trance, not forgetting the brood. But when 

 any swarm behaves in this way it is advisable 

 to clip the wing of the queen at the time of 

 hiving, if she can be found. 



4. The water could hardly have come from 

 melted snow as late as summer. If I under- 

 stand your locality, the snow would have all 

 melted months before. The moisture is prob- 

 ably due to the warmth of the bees coming 

 against the super cover, and in contact with 

 the cool air of the previous night. Many and 

 many a time I have noticed the exact size of a 

 cluster of bees by the moisture on top of the 

 cover. In such cases the night had been cool, 

 and in the morning there would be a sort of 

 sweat, as around an ice-pitcher, right over the 

 exact spot under which was the cluster of 

 bees — Ed ] 



WINTERING BEFS IN A LARGE CELLAR; THE 



EXPERIMENT AT THE HOME OF 



THE HONEY-BEES. 



I was very much interested in your indoor 

 wintering as described in Gleanings, in your 

 cellar pirtitioned off from the main apart- 

 ment. Now, do I understand that the only 

 provision for ventilation was what would per- 

 Cilate through the sacking? How did they 

 compare with the outdoor colonies, as to 

 building for the harvest ? 



I am thinking of partitioning off a space 

 like that in one end of my cellar under the 

 store. Vegetables, etc., are kept in the main 

 part of the cellar. Would you recommend it 

 with your present light ? I have always win- 



tered outdoors with hives packed, but do not 

 like it. The winters are too severe. 



Geo. Shiber. 

 Franklin ville, N. Y., Aug. 6. 



[We were very much pleased with our exper- 

 iment in wintering bees under the machine- 

 shop, as described in Gleanings, pages 195, 

 246, and 400. They came out in fine condi- 

 tion, were much stronger, and were in belter 

 condition for the honey-flow when it came — 

 much better. 



There is no reason why you could not se- 

 cure the same results we did, providing you 

 see to it the temperature does not go below 40 

 nor above 55, for that is the range that pre- 

 vailed in our cellar ; but on account of the 

 large number of potatoes we had in other 

 parts of the cellar we opened and closed the 

 windows quite frequently. During very warm 

 spells, when the temperature was above freez- 

 ing we kept the cellar closed to keep in the 

 cold air ; then when it became quite cold, and 

 the temperature went up a little too much, 

 the windows were opened. 



But it should be understood that the bees 

 were in a compartment wholly within the cel- 

 lar, and the potatoes were stored in the space 

 around the compartment or room in which 

 the bees were. We closed up the space or 

 ends of this room by means of sacking or bur- 

 lap, two or three thicknesses, one over the 

 other. The bees were scarcely examined all 

 winter except to note the variation in temper- 

 ature occasionally ; and the number of dead 

 bees was the smallest I have ever seen. In 

 fact, one could almost walk on his tip toes 

 without stepping on dead bees. The colonies 

 were kept in the cellar until it was so warm 

 outside that one could almost rear queens, and 

 we kept them there late just to see how long 

 they would remain and keep quiet, even after 

 other bees were gathering pollen from natural 

 sources outside. We shall, the coming fall, 

 put in twice the number of colonies ; and as 

 the cellar is 36x96 we do not consider that 

 the increase in numbers will make any prac- 

 tical difference so far as the atmosphere of the 

 general cellar is concerned. 



I think one secret of the successful winter- 

 ing is due to the fact that the cold air came 

 into the outer compartment of the cellar, 

 and then gradually percolated through the 

 burlap (after it got warmed up) into the place 

 where the bees were. The result was, there 

 was no sudden change of temperature, and 

 plenty of fresh air. 



I am satisfied now that one trouble from 

 indoor wintering is that cellars are often too 

 small for the number of colonies accommo- 

 dated. One may put 150 colonies into a cellar 

 10X10; but the cubic capacity of air for so 

 many bees is altogether too small to get good 

 results. In our machine-shop cellar there 

 were only 30 or 40 colonies in a cellar 36x96, 

 although the bees themselves were confined 

 in a room the two ends of which were shut off 

 with burlap, not larger than 8x8. But, un- 

 derstand that, although this room itself was 

 small, the air could circulate through it and 

 into it from the big cellar on the outside. 



