.Tan-uarv. 1910 



flT, EANTNGS TN BEE CULTURE 



BEES IN POUND PACKAGES 



A Comparison 'with JVintered-o'ver 



Colonies. Results with Two Pounds 



Shipped North in Early Spring 



By E. R. Root 



AT one of the 

 Ontario 

 conventions 

 some four or 

 five years ago I 

 told something 

 about the possi- 

 bilities of ship- 

 ping bees ■\\uth- 

 ont combs by 



exjiross to tlie North; and, when I intimated 

 that it might be possible (I did not say it 

 was) to make two pounds of bees without 

 combs shipped from the South in April do as 

 well as a colony wintered over requiring be- 

 tween 30 and 40 pounds of stores, the eon- 

 ^•ention thought I was joking; and then 

 when they found I was serious they "gave 

 me the laugh. ' ' On the basis that the colony 

 would require 40 pounds of stores, the price 

 then being 12 cents in Canada, I figured it 

 would cost in the neighborhood. of five or six 

 dollars to winter over a colony of bees. At 

 the prevailing price of $1.00 a pound for 

 bees, without queen, we in the North could 

 get, I figured, two pounds of bees and a queen 

 from the South in early spring for about 

 $3.50. I went on to say that m.any a colony 

 wintered over would not have two pounds of 

 bees in the spring. 



After my talk that day several came to me 

 and asked if I w'as not a little wild in my as- 

 sertions. When I said no, they seemed to feel 

 I would be wiser some day. Well, the result 

 was that a number of beekeepers thought 

 enough of the proposition to try it out the 

 following spring. For results of this, see 

 Gleanings, page 744, for 1915, and page 108, 



for 1917. In the 

 last reference C. 

 W. Hellen, 

 Markham, Ont., 

 secured from 17 

 one-pound pack- 

 ages of bees, 

 each with queen. 

 1,800 pounds of 

 honey and had' 

 left 17 nice colonies for winter. This actual 

 performance went clear beyond my dreams, 

 and he was a beginner. 



In the mean time I began to talk the 

 pound-package business in Gleanings. We 

 shipped bees without combs all over the 

 United States; and when the candy was 

 made right, and the weather was not too 

 warm, we could send them long distances. 

 About this time the beekeepers in the 

 South began to advertise bees in pound- 

 package lots in a large way. Thousands 

 upon thousands of dollars' worth' of bees 

 were sold to beekeepers in the North. Some 

 beekeepers reported most gratifying results. 

 In the mean time the jjrice of honey began 

 to mouut, and the demand for pounds of 

 bees became greater. Then came the severe 

 winter of 1917-18, when there were severe 

 losses all over the North. This, of course, 

 stimulated still more the demand for bees 

 in package form. The result was that many 

 of the package men were oversold. Others 

 accepted cash orders when they should have 

 returned the money. 



A Remarkable Record. 

 The man who has kept the most careful 

 record of the possibilities of a two-pound 



Eig- 1. — One of David Running's outyards run for extracted honey. The bees in this yard were wintered 

 in the cellar under the building shown in the background. Thei cellar referred to is the famous David 

 Running cellar, inenlion of which is made on page 524, September issue, and in which there has been 



perfect wintering for the last 15 years. 



