THE AMERICAIJ BEE JOURNAL. 



135 



both for brood-frames and sections. 

 The shape of the hive is not so impor- 

 tant as tlie situation of the (lowers 

 accessible to llie bees, or the method 

 of management. lie keeps about .SO 

 colonies of bees, and has about 300 

 extra combs. He uses wide frames 

 in the surplus arrangements. Prom 

 time to time lie examines them and 

 removes all filled sections. The short, 

 or as he terms them, " bob-tailed" sec- 

 tions, he leaves and allows the bees in 

 the spring to have access to the hives 

 containing these sections, when the 

 bees clean them out. lie prefers the 

 hybrids, believing tliat a cross always 

 takes care of its honey. Some of the 

 best bees are of the most common 

 stock. Black bees are hard to find 

 now. 



Mr. Wilcox has been using the Sim- 

 plicity hive, but does not use wide 

 frames. Hereafter he intends to use 

 the Heddon-Langstroth hive and will 

 follow the Heddon system of manage- 

 ment. He will use sections 1J| inches 

 wide with a strip of foundation nearly 

 the full size of the section, placing it 

 in the middle of the section. Another 

 system is the Walker system, by 

 which the rack is ready to be shipped 

 as soon as taken from the hive. He 

 employs the " tiering up " plan, which 

 is especially of advantage in very 

 warm weather. lie prefers the Ital- 

 ians for producing extracted honey. 



Frank McNay said that if sections 

 are used without separators, we must 

 use narrow sections, otherwise the 

 bees will build extra combs. After 

 the bees get started in a section, he 

 places another under it, and as soon 

 as a section is filled he removes it. 



Question. " How many use the 

 wide frames '?" Only two bee-keep- 

 ers present preferred them. 



The next topic, " Controlling after- 

 swarms," was then discussed. 



Mr. Frank McNay had long ago 

 discovered that cutting out queen - 

 cells would not prevent swarming, 

 and particularly after-swarming. He 

 hives the swarm, places it upon the 

 old stand, moves the old hive to anew 

 stand and in the evening of the next 

 day he brings the old colony and 

 shakes all the bees into the new hive 

 on the old stand so that all the young 

 queens are destroyed. His first swarm 

 appears about June 8. He thinks that 

 the brown German bees are better 

 than the blacks. 



il. A. Gill practices dividing colo- 

 nies, rears queens as nearly as possi- 

 ble under the swarming impulse, and 

 desires to have all colonies strong at 

 the right time to gather honey. 



Mr, AVilcox returns swarms, and 

 whatever bees they have go to work 

 in the sections. He generally pre- 

 vents after-swarms and gets white 

 honey. 



Frank McNay said that much de- 

 pended upon the location of an apiary; 

 while Mr. Wilcox's location was very 



food for his own plan, it would not 

 for the speaker's location, on ac- 

 count of the l)ees getting too strong. 

 Mr. Gill had practiced dividing col- 

 onies for so long a time that his bees 

 have lost the "knack" of natural 

 swarming. He has not had a natural 

 swarm for 3 years. 



Last year Mr. McNay had an in- 

 crease of only 7 colonies in an apiary 

 of 45. 



Mr. Hatch explained the Heddon 

 method of controlling after-swarms, 

 and thought that it was very essential 

 to keep good queens. 



The next topic discussed was "■ The 

 races of bees." 



Mr. Gill said that he had had expe- 

 rience with 4 races of bees, but he 

 preferred the hybrid as a bee for busi- 

 ness, and said that a dark cross gives 

 the bees vigor. As a rule he had 

 found that the best hybrids are bred 

 from pure mothers ; if produced by 

 Italian mothers, crossed with the 

 brown bee, they will better protect 

 sheir stores from robbers. The light- 

 colored bees he had found to be lazy, 

 but the dark, leather-colored bees had 

 proven the best. 



The next and last topic discussed 

 was " The best method ol wintering 

 bees." 



President Hatch said that it is a 

 one-sided question. He had tried, 

 without. satisfactory success, the out- 

 door plan and was now of the opinion 

 that a deep, dry and well ventilated 

 cellar is the best place in which to 

 winter bees, not only because it is 

 safer, but because it requires less 

 honey. He thinks that each colony 

 ought to have 20 pounds of good, thick 

 honey ; thickness of honey being an 

 important quality. He does not look 

 after the queens, as he considers it 

 unimportant, and as they are trouble- 

 some to find. He thinks that it is a 

 good idea to spread the brood-frames. 

 He keeps the temperature of his cellar 

 at about 4o° above zero, and considers 

 that the right temperature. 



Mr. Gill spoke of an instance where 

 a bee-keeper wintered his bees in the 

 cellar under his kitchen, and the bees 

 were so warm that they swarmed in 

 February. 



Mr. McNay gives plenty of ventila- 

 tion at the bottoms of the hives by 

 putting them on strips, thus giving a 

 free circulation of air below. He 

 considers this lower ventilation very 

 essential to successful wintering. 



The President thought that he must 

 have the bottom-boards on the hives. 

 Mr. Gill at first packed his hives in 

 corn-fodder and lost all his bees but 6 

 colonies. Mr. Joiner has a pit dug in 

 the hill-side, built around with sap- 

 lings and covered with a double door. 

 At one end of it there is a ventilating 

 flue. He puts the hives in as soon as 

 cold weather begins and leaves them 

 until April, or when the maples are 

 in bloom. He loses no colonies with 

 this method of wintering. 



Dr. A^ance described his double- 

 walled hive, in the construction of 

 which he uses 3 thicknesses of build- 

 ing paper, instead of chaff. He could 

 not say as yet that it is a success, be- 

 cause half of his bees died last winter, 

 the most of the colonies evidently 

 having died from starvation. Thus 

 far this winter his bees are alive. 



-Mr. Gill stated that if the Doctor 

 had put his hives in the cellar after 

 his elaborate preparation, no doubt 

 they would have wintered success- 

 fully. In the cellar the bees require 

 much less honey. One winter his 



bees were in confinement for 108 days 

 and consumed but 4 pounds of honey 

 per colony. He thinks that I'J pounds 

 of honey is enough and that combs of 

 honey are the best feeders. On an- 

 other occasion he wintered 14-5 colo- 

 nies on 1.5 pounds of sugar syixip per 

 colony. 



Mr. McNay has a ventilating pipe 

 from the cellar connecting with the 

 pipe of the stove in the room above, 

 and has had better success since using 

 this arrangement. 



Mr. Jollier thought that it will take 

 about as much honey as if wintering 

 out-doors. 



Mr. McNay said that bees do not 

 breed much until spring. 



Mr. Elvers thinks that there are 

 some advantages in out-door winter- 

 ing, as the bees have brood earlier. 



Mr. GUI thought that there was no 

 advantage in having brood early. It 

 was just as useless as It would be for 

 a farmer to employ hands and board 

 them for several weeks before the 

 time of harvest. 



Mr. Elvers said that he sometimes 

 did that with advantage. In putting 

 out the bees In the spring there is 

 more or less dwindling, which is not 

 so likely to occur in out-door winter- 

 ing. Bees will materially diminish in 

 a week after they are put out. 



A table was made out In which 21 

 members represented 892 colonies, 

 spring count ; 1440 put into winter 

 quarters ; and IS.6.30 lbs. of comb 

 honey and 47,770 lbs. of extracted 

 honey produced during the season of 

 1884. Eight members use the Sim- 

 plicity hive ; -5, the Langstroth ; 4, 

 Kidder; 3, American; and 14 winter 

 their bees in cellars; 1, in a bee- 

 house; 1, in a pit; and 4, in chaff or 

 double-walled hives. 



The Secretary of the State Agricul- 

 tural Society expressed his gratifica- 

 tion at the success of the bee-depart- 

 ment of the Society, assured its 

 members of his interest in their 

 behalf, and promised his cordial co- 

 operation in helping forward the 

 Wisconsin Bee-Keepers' Association. 



Adjourned until Feb. 1886. 



J. W. Vance, Sec. 



C. A. Hatch, Pres. 



For tlie American Bee Journal. 



Wintering Bees in Chaff-Boxes. 



W. H. SHIRLEY. 



All things considered, I believe that, 

 for wintering bees, chaff hives stand 

 at the head yet, and the closer the 

 chaff is to the bees the better. In the 

 fall of 1882, I constructed 1-50 winter- 

 ing boxes, on the chaff-hive principle. 

 Into these boxes I put the bees and 

 their combs from their summer hives, 

 and they wintered without any bee- 

 diarrhea. 



In the fall of 1883, after filling the 

 1.50 boxes. I had 17 colonies left which 

 I put up in clamps with sawdust pack- 

 ing ; 13 of the 17 died with bee-diar- 

 rhea, while not one of the 1.50 in the 

 boxes showed any signs of it. Having 

 sold all my interest here to ]Mr. Hed- 

 don, it will be for him to report how 

 they winter in the boxes this w inter — 



