1056 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sepr. 1 



CONVERSATIONS WITH 

 DOOLITTLE 



WINTER PREPARATIONS. 



" I was told the other day that you believe that 

 September is the month in which to prepare bees 

 for winter, if the best results are to be secured the 

 next season. This was something quite new to 

 me, so I have come to have a talk with you. It is 

 so different trom what I have been practicing that 

 I had my doubts in regard to it." 



" Well, Mr. Grant, I believe that the most of 

 our bee-keepers wait until it is too late in mak- 

 ing any needed preparations for winter. Win- 

 tering is one of the great problems in the northern 

 portions of the United States; but there are some 

 things regarding the wintering of bees which are 

 applicable to all portions of North America, if 

 not to the whole world." 



"But you would not recommend such a thing 

 as cellar wintering, as you practice it, to our 

 friends in the South, would you.?" 



" No. In fact, this early preparation we are 

 to talk about will have very little to do with 

 where the bees are to be wintered, but, rather, 

 about the preparation of the colonies. One of 

 the old veteran bee-keepers of the time when I 

 first started in apiculture said, in a convention 

 which I attended, that the time to begin prepa- 

 rations for the iioney-flow is the season before. 

 Now, we shall have to modify this but little to 

 have it apply to the preparation of colonies for 

 wintering, for, surely, such preparations place the 

 bees in the best possible condition to be in readi-, 

 ness for the flow of nectar when it comes the next 

 season. All of the old stereotyped advice of the 

 past has had to do with the wintering problem 

 along the line of whether the hives should be 

 packed or unpacked; whether the bees should 

 have ventilation at the top or the bottom of their 

 hives; whether there should be much moisture in 

 the cellar or great dryness; whether the cellar 

 should have sub-earth ventilation or ventilation 

 by means of a tall chimney; whether the colonies 

 have sufficient honey, or stores of sugar syrup 

 with no pollen, etc. But little stress is laid up- 

 on other conditions such as age of the bees, the 

 age of queens and their general good qualities, 

 the proper spacing of the combs, etc. Sufficient 

 stores, also, should be included as one of the nec- 

 essary preparations to be made at this time of the 

 year. " 



"Then you think that September is the time to 

 do these things.''" 



" Yes, or earlier. As a rule, wintering prepar- 

 ations are deferred until late in the fall, when it 

 is too late to cure any defects that may be dis- 

 covered in the general condition of the colony, 

 except, perhaps, the giving of stores where colo- 

 nies are found wanting. I believe it to be a fact 

 that, if a colony is provided with a vigorous 

 queen, plenty of bees of suitable ages, and ample 

 stores within easy reach, the other so-called es- 

 sentials may be in a measure disregarded in almost 

 any locality except where winter holds supreme 

 for five or six months without giving the bees one 

 single chance of flight." 



"When should this preparatory work begin.?" 



" You can not set any day of the year, but it 



should begin immediately after the close of the 

 honey harvest, and continued, if necessary, and, 

 whenever the weather is favorable, well into the 

 first week or two in October. I would first re- 

 queen, with the best stock in the apiary, all colo- 

 nies whose work had shown during the season 

 that their queen was not of the very best order; 

 and I would not allow prolificness in the produc- 

 tion of bees to be the only essential to go by ei- 

 ther. Together with prolificness and great hon- 

 ey-gathering qualities should go perfect comb- 

 building in the sections, white capping of the 

 combs, little inclination to build brace-comb 

 from the surface of the combs in the sections to 

 the separators, and the bees should not daub eve- 

 ry thing over with propolis." 



" Do you expect to get a bee perfect in all of 

 these respects.?" 



" It may not be possible to reach perfection in 

 all of these things; but unless we set our ideal 

 high we shall be drifting toward a lower level all 

 the while. I know that, with such high ideals 

 before us, very many of our best queen-breeders 

 have bees to-day which would have been called 

 perfect by those of half a century ago; and if we 

 improve in proportion for the next half-century, 

 those who are on the stage of action at that time 

 will have bees which we would now pronounce 

 perfect. Occasionally there will be a colony 

 headed by a queen whose bees are inclined to 

 store the larger part of the honey in the brood- 

 combs, or, in other words, they will gorge the 

 brood-nest with honey, so that late in the season 

 there is little room available to raise young bees. 

 The old bees soon die off, and spring finds the 

 colony heavy with honey, but so reduced in 

 bees that half of the harvest is past before the col- 

 ony can be gotten into shape to work in the sec- 

 tions. This condition can be remedied now with 

 but little work — first by changing the queen for 

 one of the young ones from the best stock; and, 

 second, by removing two or three of the frames 

 of solid honey and inserting in their places frames 

 of empty worker comb. A little of the honey at 

 the lower side of the remaining frames should be 

 uncapped to give the queen a chance, which she 

 will not be slow to improve, as she is young and 

 vigorous. If this is done the last of August or 

 the very first of September, two sets of bees will 

 be reared and a suitable force provided whose 

 period of life will be extended far into the spring. 

 I have known such bees to live and do good work 

 well into the latter part of June, and always until 

 the colony becomes strong enough to take ad- 

 vantage of the flow of nectar from white clover. 

 All colonies deficient in stores should be fed, 

 rather than wait till so late that they will not 

 properly surround the brood or clustering-nest 

 with well-ripened food. If done thus early in 

 the season, the feeding will not only provide the 

 necessary stores for winter, but stimulate, to the 

 rearing of a little extra brood, the bees from which 

 will help to carry the colony into the next spring 

 in perfect order." 



" But all of this will require a lot of work?" 



" Not so much as you think, for the little at- 

 tention at this time to these details will lay the 

 foundation for a good crop the following season, 

 and is really work which pays fully as well as if 

 not better than any thing else which we do 

 throughout the whole year. " 



