THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



219 







Report, from D. L. Sbapley, Jlau- 

 dallsville,© N. Y., on March 28, 1S8.5 : 



I have wintered ti2 colonies of bees, 

 and I fed IMO pounds of sugar last 

 fall. The last season was a very poor 

 one in this locality ; bassvvood did not 

 blossom any, and all that the bees 

 gathered was from white clover. 

 The weather has been very cold, and 

 there is much snow on the ground 

 now. 



Hibernation of Hedgehogs and Por- 

 cupines. — Dr. E. B. Southwick, Slier- 

 inan,x)Mich., in referring to an article 

 on page 186, writes thus : 



Chambers' Encyclopedia, in giving 

 an account of the porcupine, says: 

 " It burrows in the ground, and in 

 winter it becomes torpid." Again, 

 of the hedgehog it says : " In winter 

 the hedgehog becomes torpid, retiring 

 to some hole at the base of a tree, be- 

 neath roots, or in some such situa- 

 tion. It provides no winter stores, 

 and no other British animal hiber- 

 nates so completely." I have never 

 heard of a hedgehog in this country. 

 It is a small animal, only 9 or 10 

 inches long ; but porcupines, which 

 are from 2 to S}-^ feet in length, are 

 more plentiful here than the skunk or 

 woodchuck, but they are not seen in 

 winter unless found in their burrows. 



Still Cold.— 6— C. E. Miller, (76—65), 

 Edella,c5 Pa., on March 23, 1885, 

 writes : 



My bees have been confined to their 

 hives for 82 days, and still no signs of 

 their having a flight. I have 20 colo- 

 nies in the cellar, which seem to be all 

 right, and perfectly quiet. Those 

 which are out-doors are the ones that 

 alarm me. I took a peep at some of 

 them to-day, and I found that 2 of 

 the number examined were dead. 

 The most of them appeared to be all 

 right, a few showed signs of diarrhea, 

 and some had soiled the combs and 

 the inside of their hives. It has been 

 very cold here since Feb. 1. I think 

 that the past winter was worse than 

 that of 1880-81. On Sunday morning, 

 March 22, the mercury was 8^ below 

 zero. 



Wintering Bees. — Rev. J. Kearns, 

 Morning Sun,<x Iowa, writes as fol- 

 lows on this subject : 



The question of the safe wintering 

 of bees has given bee-keepers more 

 annoyance than any other one ques- 

 tion. All plans have, in some locali- 

 ties and in some seasons, failed ; the 

 most imposing theories have proved 

 more or less unsatisfactory. To this 

 vexed subject I have given special 

 attention for a number of years, and 

 I have succeeded in managing my 

 bees so that I am satisfied that I can 

 winter them safely in any locality, 

 and during the most severe winter. I 

 put 2 colonies in one box with a 



porous partition between them, and 

 from 8 to 5 inches of packing around 

 and over them. The advantage of 

 this is that of getting the heal of 2 

 colonies of bees together, and this, 

 with good packing, makes the hive so 

 nearly frost-proof that the bees lie 

 quiet, even'wiien the thermometer is 

 30 ' below zero, and a severe gale 

 blowing from the northwest. I have 

 tested this plan for live winters, two 

 of which were exceedingly fatal on 

 bees, and I have wintered some quite 

 weak colonies with what I considered 

 poor food, and yet I have never lost 

 a colony since following this iibin. 

 The past winter has been the most 

 severe one ever known in this locality 

 — so say the oldest settlers— nearly 

 three-fourths of all the bees in this 

 locality being dead, and still I win- 

 tered 52 colonies without any loss, 

 and most of them with the loss of 

 comparatively few bees. These colo- 

 nies faced the south, north and west, 

 with the entrances fully open as in 

 summer. 



Report, from Charles Mitchell, 

 Molesworth, Out., on March 30, 1885 : 



Mr. Doolittle's statement, on page 

 181, is the strongest that I have ever 

 met with. Each winter I have about 

 15 colonies next to a fence, and I have 

 yet to lose my tirst colony. There is 

 generally 5 feet of snow over them, 

 and the full summer entrance to the 

 hive is given them, and a 3-inch cush- 

 ion over the frames. I have about 

 concluded that bees are pretty hard 

 to kill, for out of 58 colonies examined, 

 I lost only 3, 2 colonies having starved 

 for want of winter passages, and 1 

 perished with diarrhea. 



Bees Confined 120 Days. —Henry 

 Alley, Wenham,(5 Mass., on March26, 

 1885, says : 



We are having warmer weather 

 now, but not warm enough for the 

 bees to have a flight. The bees in 

 mv bee -house have been confined for 

 120 days, but they are in good condi- 

 tion. 



Careless Bee-Keepers., etc.— Robert 

 Corbett, Manhattan, c5 Kans., on Mar. 

 28, 1885, says : 



On account of having been sick 

 from Feb. 1 until March 10, I think 

 that I have lost quite a lot of bees for 

 the want of attention. I have lost 2 

 nuclei with valuable queens, and 6 

 colonies, 4 of which were lost on ac- 

 count of robbing and loss of queens. 

 The loss of bees in this locality is 

 great, being about, I should think, 

 four-fifths of all ; and I may say, 

 through carelessness. There is about 

 2 inches of snow on the ground, and 

 my bees are still shut up. I would 

 like to know why it is that one of two 

 equally strong colonies in one loca- 

 tion, during a certain season, will pro- 

 duce 100 lbs. of honey, while the other 

 will -produce only from ?,Q to 50 lbs. 

 I think that it miist be that different 

 colonies prefer different kinds of 

 flowers. I have pretty thoroughly 

 tested this during the past 3 years. In 

 this locality, in dry seasons, the bees 



store a peppery kind of honey— so 

 peppery that when one eats it, it 

 i)urns the throat. It is unsalable and 

 unfit to eat. In I8S2 I had 2 colonies 

 that stored this kind of honey while 

 the remainder of the apiary (some 30 

 colonies) had none of it. In 1883 I had 

 3 colonies of this kind, and all the rest 

 stored good, sweet honey, while the 

 past season was such a poor one, and 

 the bees were obliged to supply stores 

 for their winter support, that all, ex- 

 cepting :! colonies, worked on the iron- 

 weed, and consequently what surplus 

 they stored, was useless except for 

 feeding back. I think that this tends 

 to prove that bees prefer to choose the 

 flowers upon which to work. 



Report, from Wra. Dyke, Effing- 

 ham,? Ills., on March 25, 1885 : 



My 34 colonies have come through 

 the winter, but they are a little weak. 

 I have just finished moving them 

 from my farm to my residence in 

 town, and now that we have open 

 weather I can work them up for the 

 coming honey crop. 



Visiting California Apiaries. — Mrs. 

 B. Stover, Roscoe,5 Ills., writes as 

 follows : 



Two years ago last December my 

 husband and myself went to Southern 

 California, where he hoped to spend a 

 pleasant winter and visit some of the 

 apiaries which he had seen described 

 in the bee-papers ; but the climate did 

 not agree with him, and he gradually 

 grew worse from the time of alight- 

 ing from the cars in Los Angeles. 

 We visited but one apiary, which was 

 situated a few miles from Santa 

 Monica ; and, although it was during 

 the month of January, it was as 

 warm, and the bees were flying as 

 lively as if it were the latter part of 

 May here. Instead of returning in 

 April or May, as he expected to at- 

 tend to his own bees, he lingered 

 along until June 7, and on June 9, 1 

 buried him in the Ojai Valley (15 

 miles from San Buenaventura), be- 

 neath the shade of the live-oak, and 

 amid the ceaseless hum of the " busy 

 bee," whose tiny music ever delighted 

 his ear. It seems hard to dispose of 

 his bees, and I shall miss them, as 

 they have been a part of the family 

 for the past ten years. 



Report, etc., from J. W. Howell, 



Kenton,^ Tenn., on March 27, 1885 : 



This has been a long, cold winter, 

 but I have lost only 10 colonies of 

 bees, and the remainder have been 

 gathering pollen for two or three days 

 from maple and elm, they being the 

 only blooms that are out yet. Veg- 

 etation is at least one month later 

 than usual. The bees are at work to- 

 day. We only need good weather for 

 awhile, when plenty of nectar for the 

 bees to gather will be the result. 

 There are those who think that bees 

 may freeze and be all right by thaw- 

 ing out again, but like Mr. Anderson, 

 page 188, 1 think that they will some- 

 times freeze, but after that they are 

 of no value — only the hive and combs 

 may be of service again. 



