Gleanings io Be« Culture 



WLNTKK LOSSES OVER THE COrXTRY. 



Reports are few and scattering, although 

 it is safe to guess that the total loss will be 

 much more severe than for many years 

 past. In most localities where cellar or out- 

 door wintering prevails, and the bees had 

 sugar syrup or equally good table honey. 

 there were practically no losses. Cellar win- 

 tering during the past winter, where the 

 conditions so far as ventilation and humid- 

 ity were right, has again demonstrated its 

 superiority in estreinely cold localities or 

 cold weather. Bees well housed in double- 

 walled hives on good stores have, as a gen- 

 eral thing, wintered well. The following is 

 a fair sample showing the value of protec- 

 tion: 



I can inlonn you how my bees wintered. Home 

 yard, chaff hives, in open, wintered perfectly: sin- 

 gle-waUed. protected by building, loss 2ij per cent: 

 cellar, no loss. 



Out-apiarles. yard A, single-walled. ta_open, loss 

 little over s.' per cent: yard B. as above, .o per cent, 

 yard C. as above. TO i>er cent. This is the greatest 

 loss ever experienced. Had the bees been all pack- 

 ed, the results would have been better. 



Germantown- O., March 27. O. O. Zehkesg. 



In many localities last fall the bees gath- 

 ered considerable fall honey. TMiere this 

 was the case some heavy losses have been 

 reported. A queer thing about it is that 

 bees south of the Ohio River have died as 

 as well those north of it. The unusual cold 

 caused them to consume more stores than 

 usual, causing starvation and sometimes 

 dysentery. 



The greatest losses seemed to have occur- 

 red on or near a line running through the 

 center of the following States: Iowa, Wis- 

 consin, Illinois, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. 

 Losses are reported in Oklahoma, Kansas, 

 and ilissouri. Fair to good wintering is 

 being reported in Minnesota, Michigan, 

 Canada, New York, and the New Kngland 

 States. In Minnesota. Michigan, Canada, 

 and Xew York, where the bees have been 

 housed in cellars or in good double-walled 

 hives outdoors, the losses have been light. 



As we said aVx)ut a month ago. losses will 

 be hea\-iest on the di\-iding Une where pro- 

 tection of the hives is usually practiced, and 

 where protection such as outside winter 

 cases or double walls is seldom used. 

 Strangely enough, losses are the lightest 

 where it is the coldest. 



WHAT TO JXj with WEAK DWESTDLTSG COL- 

 OXTES, AST) HOW TO BULLD THEM UP. 



Fortunately, spring has opened up very 

 auspiciously.' Brood-rearing is starting up 

 well, and bees everywhere will hold their 

 own, pro\"iding a severe c*old spell does not 

 follow. Xo one can tell. As a general 

 thing it does not pay to unite little weak 

 nuclei. If the weather is unfavorable they 

 will die whether united or left on their orig- 

 inal stands. When united the old bees go 

 back to the old stand. Our Mr. Mell Pritch- 

 ard makes the suggestion that it would not 

 be a bad idea to unite a lot of weak ones in- 

 to one hive and put them in a dark cellar 

 and keep them there for a week or ten days, 

 and then set them out. This will give them 



an opportunity to form into one colony, and 

 at the ?ametime lose their sense of lociation, 

 and start over again. 



In this issue Mr. Doolittle has an excel- 

 lent article on making increase. Many of 

 our friends who have lost heavily, and wish 

 to make the survivors go as far as possible, 

 can read it with profit. See page '221. 



The Alexander plan of building up nuclei 

 into strong colonies has given splendid re- 

 sults. As many do not have his book, or 

 have forgotten "when it was published in 

 these columns, we give it here: 



As soon as they have some uncapped brood in 

 their hives, take them to a good strong colony: re- 

 move its cover and put a queen-excluder in Its 

 place, then set the weak one on top of the excluder 

 and close up all entrances to the weak colony, ex- 

 cept what they have through the excluder, down 

 into the strong colony below. Leave them in this 

 way together four or five weeks: then separate 

 them and you will have two good colonies and wUl 

 have saved yourself aU worry about these weak 

 colonies being robbed, chilled, or starved. When 

 we are feeding the other colonies we usually give 

 these a few spoonfuls of the warm syrup in a comb 

 next their brood. This encourages them: and if 

 there is not more than a cupful of bees they don't 

 get much from the feeder under the strong colony. 

 I have explained at bee conventions this way of 

 saving these little colonies, and have received very 

 complimentary letters afterward from prominent 

 beekeepers, saying that this idea was worth more 

 than SlW to them, 



WHAT TO DO WITH EXTRA QUEEX5. 



If any of the stronger colonies have im- 

 purely fnated or undesirable queens, it will 

 be a good time to requeen with pure blood 

 from the united nuclei. Of course, the ob- 

 jection might be raised that a queen that 

 will not raise bees that will pull through a 

 winter like this should not take the place of 

 a queen whose bees did stand the rigors. 

 But it may be that the pure queen did not 

 have the same chance that the poorly mark- 

 ed queen had. For example, we find that 

 our colonies that siipplied nuclei or pound 

 packages of bees in September and October, 

 in most cases died because they had been 

 robbed of a very important part of their bee 

 family. If, for example, it is necessary to 

 go into winter quarters with three pounds 

 of bees, and we take away one pound, we 

 run the chances of losing the whole colony. 



DEATH OF S. T. PETTTT. 



Mr. S. T. Pettit, of Aylmer West, Ont., 

 Canada, died on the 2-5th day of last month 

 in his S3d year. He was the father of Mor- 

 ley Pettit,' Provincial Apiculturist of the 

 Apicultural Department of the Ontario Ag- 

 ricultural College of Canada, and also fa- 

 ther-in-law of Mr. R. F. Holtermann, for- 

 merly editor of our Canadian Department, 

 and now an occasional contributor to these 

 columns. 



For manv years Mr. Pettit was one of the 

 most prominent bee-keepers of Ontario. 

 He was a man of pronounced opinions and 

 of sterling qualities. Among other things 

 he was the discoverer of the plan for mak- 

 ing bees fill the outside rows of sections as 

 well as the inside. This was done by put- 

 ting perforated dividers or separators out- 



