1887 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



567 



April came it g-radually rose to 45°, at which point 

 it was when the bees were removed. Now, the bees 

 in this clami> wintered splendidly, and there were 

 no lires and no supervision, and tlie conditions \fere 

 the same as though they had been in an outdoor cel- 

 lar. I am aware that some beekeepers use a fire to 

 warm their bee-cellars, and, with some cellars, this 

 may be necessary; but with an underground cellar 

 that receives a steady supply of heat Irom the 

 earth, tires are wholly unnecessarj-; and all the su- 

 pervision that is needed does not amount to any 

 thing- practically, so iar as cost is concerned— at 

 least, not to the man who lives at home wintei'S. 



Mr. P. speaks of the " wear and tear" of putting- 

 bees in tlic cellar and taking them out again. 1 

 fail to see where there is any "wear and tear." He 

 further says, a cellar won't last always, and must 

 be repaired. This is true of some cellars. A cellar 

 stoned up, and under a building, such a one as Mr. 

 Taylor's or Mr. Heddon's, will require no repairs 

 for a lifetime. You, friend Root, speak of the cost 

 of preparing the cellar for wintering bees; that the 

 windows must be darkened; sub-earth ventilation 

 furnished, etc. Candidly, my friend, do you, or 

 does atiyhody know that all these things are needed'? 

 Do we Inioio that a cellar must be dark? and if Wv! 

 do know it, is it expensive to darken the cellar'? 

 Where is the man who knows that sub-earth venti- 

 lation, or axy v'entilation for a bee-cellar is needed? 



Friend P. says there arc two " ifs " in the quota- 

 tion from Prof. Cook; and then in the next sen- 

 tence he (Pojipleton) says, " Chaff hives are safe in 

 severe winters it" (there it is again) "they are 

 properly consti-iicted and handled ;" but the really 

 weak point is this i)art of the argument is found in 

 this sentence; " Many of us older heads have sup- 

 posed that we had found the royal road to success, 

 and would reach it, too, for a series of years, when 

 some climatic or fiMid changes \vou\d occur, and the 

 goal would be still ahead." 1 wish to call attention 

 to the part I have italicized. The two " ifs " in my 

 quotations from Prof. Cook are surmountable. We 

 can have the cellar right; ditto the food; but in 

 outdoor wintering those climatic changes are an 

 element of uncertainty, the damages from -svhich 

 can be only partly averted by chaff hives or pro- 

 tection of some kind. In the cellar we can have 

 the conditions the same every winter. I have yet 

 to lose a colony having cane sugar for stores, and 

 Avintered in a warm cellar, and by the methods 

 that I now employ I can have the winter stores con- 

 sist of so large a per cent of sugar, and that, too, in 

 such a position that it will almost surely be used 

 <luriiig the winter, and all with so little labor, that 

 the danuigeof loss from unsuitable food practically 

 amounts to but little. It is so slight that I prefer 

 to take the risk rather than to perform more labor 

 and take no risk. 1 will admit, that some honey is 

 equal to sugar for wintering purposes; and I sin- 

 cerely w-ish that friend P. could give us an article 

 iipon the subject of getting good honey for winter- 

 ing our bees, and also tell us why he thinks that 

 colonies worked upon the top-story p\au do not 

 winter so well; yes, and point out " the very obvi- 

 ous reasons " why neighbor Doane's bees did not 

 winter so well as mine. 



Yes, friend P., it is an experienced apiarist who 

 can make it pay to spread the brood, if anyone can. 

 It is also true, that the time for doing this work 

 comes before the rush of the honey harvest; and I 

 do not doubt that, combined with spring protection, 



many apiarists might find it profitable; but I feel 

 satisfled that the same results, or nearly as good re- 

 sults, nuiy be secured with no labor; and certainly 

 no bee-keeper need spread the brood in the spring, 

 simply for a luck of something to do. What I mean 

 by accomplishing the same results with no labor is, 

 using hives having a brood-nest of such capacity 

 that a queen of ordinary proliflcness can and will 

 keep the combs filled with brood without "horse- 

 whipping "her by spreading the brood. We can 

 often increase our profits by increasing the num- 

 ber of our colonies, rather than by increasing the 

 average products of those colonies we already pos- 

 sess. In other words, "securing- the greatest amount 

 of honey with the least expenditure of capital and 

 labor "does not necessarily mean securing large 

 yields per colony. 



I will explain why 1 consider it moi-e profitable to 

 winter bees upon sugar when raising comb honey. 

 The prices of extracted honey and sugar are very 

 nearly the same; or, at least, they have been, hence 

 the profit could not be very great, while the price 

 of comb honej- is twice as great. I am aware that 

 many believe that twice as much extracted as comb 

 honey can be produced, and perhaps this is true in 

 a majority of cases; but those who are well up in 

 the production of comb honej% and emjdoy the 

 best methods, know that they can secure at least 

 three-fourths as much comb as extracted honey. 



I feel now very much as though I had had my 

 " say " upon this subject; and I should be very glad 

 indeed to let some one else speak. 



w. z. Hutchinson. 



Rogersville, Mich., July 20, 1887. 



I am very glad indeed to know, friend 11., 

 that you have re.-jently succeeded so well 

 with clamps. But are you satisfied now just 

 where the cause of your former failures lay? 

 and do you think the clamp as safe, or safer, 

 than a good cellar ? and in regard to cellar 

 wintering or outdoor winteritrg, have both 

 yon and friend Poppleton taken into consid- 

 eration different localities V Wliile it is no 

 doubt safest in Michigan to winter in the 

 cellar, I do not believe the climate of Ohio 

 will warrant the same conclusion for our lo- 

 cality. 



THE PAST, AND THE PROSPECT. 



BRIGHTNESS THROUGH DISCOURAGE.MENT. 



OST of the readers of Gleanings are aware 

 by this time, no doubt, that the honey crop 

 of this season is likely to be exceedingly 

 short. My locality is no exception to the 

 general rule, unless it is in being rather 

 worse, if anj thing, than the average. In fact, the 

 season here has been most exceptionally bad. It 

 opened badly. Fruit-blossoms produced scarcely a 

 ripple on the apiarian sea. White clover came in 

 abundance, but, except for two or three days, its 

 blossoms remained almost unvisited by the bees. 

 Hasswood bloomed early and freelj', but the taste 

 of basswood honey never became perceptible in 

 the hives. Mustard and sweet clover came at 

 about the same time. For about two weeks the 

 bees worked well on these in the early morning, 

 continuing with less \igor on sweet clover through- 

 out the day. 

 Mustard is gone now, and sweet clover, in the in- 



