OCTOBER 1, 1912 



617 



Conversations ^s^ith Doolittle 



At Borodino, New York 



BUILDING AN UNDERGROUND CELLAR. 



"Mr. Doolittle, I am thinking of build- 

 ing an underground cellar for wintering 

 bees, as I find that this plan is much talked 

 about in the bee journals." 



"Well, Mr. Barber, any one who pro- 

 poses to build a cellar to be used solely 

 for wintering bees should first count the 

 cost ; and the advantages and disadvantages 

 of cellar wintering should be looked into, 

 so that as few mistakes as possible may 

 be made. Most of those who winter in a 

 cellar do so to protect their bees from the 

 severe weather. You will remember that 

 last year, from the first of January right 

 through to the middle of February we had 

 one continuous siege of cold weather when 

 the thermometer was anywhere from 25 

 below zero up to zero, while at the same 

 time winds were blowing that carried this 

 cold air into every crack and crevice. The 

 advantage of a cellar under such conditions 

 is far-reaching, in that it allows us to 

 economize to the greatest possible extent 

 on the consumption of stores by the bees, 

 and at the same time the per cent of loss 

 is decreased to two per cent, and the vitality 

 and vigor of the bees that live over are 

 conserved to the gi'eatest degi-ee." 



"But you have mentioned disadvantages 

 of cellar wintering. What are theyf 



"The disadvantages can be summed up 

 thus: The labor required in carrying the 

 bees in and out of the cellar, the difficulty 

 of caring for any individual colony which 

 may require looking after, without dis- 

 turbing all the other colonies in the cellar, 

 and the difficulty in controlling the tem- 

 perature in the cellar. This last disad- 

 vantage is the most serious of all. When 

 the sun gets around in the north in the 

 spring, and damp still weather prevails, 

 the temperature in the cellar often has a 

 tendency to run too high, thereby exciting 

 the bees. The excitement induces untimely 

 breeding and a wearing-out of the vitality 

 of the mature bees, which may bring on 

 bee dysentery or death, and which also 

 causes spring dwindling, so that many of 

 the colonies become too weak to be of any 

 use when the harvest of white honey be- 

 gins. When I wintered bees in the cellar 

 under my house I could control all condi- 

 tions until about the middle of February 

 or the first of March, and I thought there 

 was nothing like this plan of wintering; 

 but all at once the weather would change, 

 and the thermometer would jump to 40, 

 50, and even 60 degi-ees, while the air 

 would be muggy and damp. At such a time 



the roaring of the bees in the cellar would 

 sound like the rushing of the wind through 

 the bare and leafless trees in the forest, 

 and the bees would come out and die on the 

 cellar bottom till they could be swept up 

 by the bushel." 



"But I thought this state of affairs could 

 be prevented by opening the doors at night 

 or carrying the bees out for a mid-winter 

 flight." 



"I know that some advise this ; but open- 

 ing the doors at night always seems worse 

 than nothing when the air outside is 

 warmer than that inside; and carrying the 

 bees out for a flight and taking them back 

 again makes a lot of extra work, and the 

 results are not enough better to pay for it. 

 After trying all of these plans for several 

 years — for example, setting a part of the 

 colonies outside and leaving the rest inside 

 till all of them could be taken out for good, 

 as well as oj^ening the doors at certain 

 times and keeping them shut at other times 

 — I came to the conclusion that the bees 

 were just as well off by May 10 if they 

 and the cellar had been left entirely alone. 



"But you do not propose to winter under 

 a dwelling-house ; therefore, when building 

 your special cellar, you can so design it 

 that it will afford proper protection during 

 these warm sjoells, so that the temperature 

 remains unchanged throughout the winter 

 and spring. You will thus have only two 

 main points to be kept in view — proper 

 protection and convenience of access." 



How Long Does it Take to Nail Together Five Hives? 



I made the following notes on setting up : Five 

 ten-frame dovetailed Root hives, R. cover, no supers. 

 I did not nail the hand-hold blocks on. Commenced 

 work at 7 a. M. ; at 10.45 a. m. division-boards 

 nailed ; frames nailed, stapled, and wired, ready 

 for foundation. At 1 P. M. bottom-boards and cov- 

 ers done ; nails countersunk and puttied. At 1 to 2 

 P. M., rest. At 3 P. M. I set up the fifth hive body ; 

 countersunk all hive-body nails, and puttied nail- 

 holes ; nailed in from rest tins, having now hives 

 complete for paint. At 4 p. M., priming coat done ; 

 bottom-boards primed all over. 



Galena, Kan., July 20. J. P. Brumfield. 



Six Inches of Leaves for Packing 



I winter my bees on the summer stands by set- 

 ting a box without bottom and with a movable 

 cover over the hive, and packing about six inches 

 of leaves on all sides and on top of the hive. The 

 covers have a slope of six inches, and a bridge at 

 the hive entrance gives the bees a flight at any 

 time. No losses. 



Payson, 111. Daniel E. Robbins. 



Mending the Cappings with Paraffine 



I produce fancy comb honey in a limited way, 

 and I find that my finest sections are frequently 

 damaged by being broken, or the cells uncapped. 

 As I use parafifine in numerous ways, I hit on the 

 plan of mending the cappings with warm parafifine. 



Dayton, O., July 16. Edna T. Mautins, M. D. 



