90 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 



But I stopped him, by telling him that that was 

 the bee-hive that Mr. Root invented on purpose for 

 ladies, invalids, and preachers to keep bees in, be- 

 cause it was so light and handy. 



WINTERING BEES. 



BEE DIARRHEA THE ONE GREAT CAUSE OF OUR 

 WINTER LOSSES ; FRIEND HEDDON EX- 

 PLAINS. 



GIVING HIS OPINION. 



Well, he pried all that honey loose; took it off and 

 carried it into the house. After he had finished I 

 asked him how much honey he thought he had car- 

 ried in. He answered instantly. "A thousand 

 pounds." 



"Oh, no!" I said; "tell in earnest, so I can write 

 it down." 



"Well," said he, " put it four hundred. I know 

 there is that much." 



As most of the combs were old ones, I shall say 

 three hundred pounds of honey. 



This letter is long enough; but I want to tell how 

 to get bees out of honey-boxes— how to keep moths 

 out of old combs, and something about division- 

 boards, etc. I will end this as I began, by saying 

 that bee-keeping is not very hard work, and every 

 woman might as well keep bees as not. 



Vermont, 111. Mahala B. Chaddock. 



Mrs. ('haddock, you are very graphic, but 

 your illustrations bear rather hard on the 

 Simplicity hive. Please say to your good 

 husband, Mr. C, that the Simplicity nive 

 was never intended to be used in the way 

 you describe ; that is, we do not intend to 

 have the propolis get into that beveled joint, 

 as it must have done in your case, to make 

 it stick together. When I decided to tier 

 up the hives in order to get the whole prod- 

 uct of the season, in stories three or four 

 high, so as to extract all at once, I took 

 particular pains not to let the propolis run 

 down across the bevel, where the hives 

 come together, when placing them one on 

 top of the other ; but when the bees put so 

 much along the crack that it was likely to 

 get in the joint, I scraped it out with a put- 

 ty-knife. In some cases I rubbed tallow 

 along the upper edge. This entirely obvi- 

 ates all the difficulty you experienced. 

 When I find hives where the propolis has 

 been allowed to get down the joints so as to 

 glue them fast, I always choose a day to 

 separate them when the hives or the weath- 

 er is so warm that the propolis will be in a 

 soft state. If this propolis is allowed to ac- 

 cumulate, and get into the joints, it will 

 make every operation with a bee-hive dauby 

 and disagreeable. 



XjJT ES, friend Root, I can answer for myself, and 

 Mp shall be pleased to do so. I rather like the 

 ^H(F 8 ty' e °f our cr i 8 P friend Hamilton (see page 



■*■ 9, Jan. 1st). I will say, for the benefit of Mr. 

 Hamilton and your readers (if what I have 

 to say will benefit them), that, by a belief in the 

 pollen theory, and manipulation accordingly, I 

 mean I can winter any colony of bees with greater 

 certainty of success, and keep that identical colo- 

 ny (not the identical bees, however) in existence 

 longer than any one can keep a horse or a cow. 

 At our late State convention at Jackson, an over- 

 whelming majority of the members present, and, 

 in fact, I think every one of the older and larger 

 bee-keepers, believed the pollen theory to be cor- 

 rect. I am aware that bees will winter very well 

 in a hive containing much bee-bread, provided 

 they do not eat it, and I know some of the condi- 

 tions which cause them to eat it or let it alone, but 

 I do not know all of them, but am learning more 

 each year. A low temperature is the greatest of 

 all causes of consumption of bee-bread in confine- 

 ment. Of course, if it is not in the hive they can 

 not eat it ; but, at the same time, the bees can 

 be damaged by too low a temperature, and killed 

 outright by it if it is allowed to go low enough 

 and long enough. Any one who will take a colony 

 of bees, and see to it that they have no pollen in 

 their bodies at the time, and can not get any after 

 the time, and who will take away all their combs 

 and feed them properly prepared sugar syrup in 

 dry, clean combs, and who likewise will place them 

 in a repository, keep the temperature between 45 

 and 50 degrees, can leave them so six months or 

 more— I do not know how much more; and when 

 he takes them out the bees will be as bright, 

 slim, and healthy, apparently, as when they went 

 in. They will not void a speck of any thing on 

 their first flight. 



But now I imagine I hear friend Hamilton ask 

 how my bees have wintered in the past few win- 

 ters, and why some of them died with bee diarrhea. 

 I will tell him. If honey were worth a cent a 

 pound, and bees about forty cents a colony, would 

 it not be better to take lots of chances and let them 

 die if they will, rather than to go to the trouble of 

 feeding them a cash article, taking from them an 

 article in place of it which has a very slow and un- 

 certain sale indeed? I trust you see the point. 

 Even at the present price of bees and honey, if the 

 best methods of wintering are used I prefer to 

 take my chances rather than extracting honey 

 from the combs and feeding back sugar syrup, or, 

 rather, exchanging combs so as to get rid of all pol- 

 len. You know it is a job demanding much labor, 

 and endangering robbing. It is a disagreeable 

 time to work among bees; but with my new hive, 

 however, I can do the work without being annoyed 

 with robbers, and in less than one-fourth the time 

 and one-eighth the labor; and the consequence is, 

 we have almost perfect success with the new hive. 

 We take a little risk; but we could quite readily, 

 and with little increased labor and no increased 

 expense, fix things perfectly safe and sure for 

 wintering. Without occupying valuable space, you 

 will see just how this can be readily accomplished, 



