T'H® mimmmicMn mmm j@ijrhs,iu. 



401 



tended to be queen-excluding by plac- 

 ing the slats just three-sixteenths of an 

 inch apart. The slats are but five- 

 eighths of an inch wide, so as to reduce 

 the variance of this space caused by 

 Ihe swelling or shrinking of the wood. 

 The boards are exceedingly well made, 

 and the slats are very accurately 

 spaced. As queen-excluders, they are 

 commonly successful, but these boards 

 are now thrown aside. Why ? Be- 

 cause the bees will persist in almost 

 absolutely filling the space between 

 the slats with what seems to be a mix- 

 ture of glue and wax. This is usually 

 arranged in a rough attempt at verti- 

 cal cells, running thi'ough the spaces, 

 and closed like the base of a cell either 

 at the top or bottom, or somewhere in 

 the middle of this space. 



I have also regular Heddon honey- 

 boards with slits spaced three-eighths 

 of an inch apart, which have been in 

 use the same length of time as the 

 others, and the spaces are compara- 

 tivel}- free of all stoppage. There is 

 some comb in these spaces, but never 

 any glue. 



Now the question arises, if bees will 

 solidlj- fill a three-sixteenths-inch space 

 between the slats of a honey-board, 

 why will they not — and will they not — 

 do the same thing in the same space 

 above the brood-frames or between 

 section-cases ? 



BEE-ESCAPES — UNCAPPING. 



Will some one who has had in prac- 

 tical use the Reese bee-escape, please 

 tell us if the bees ever trouble in un- 

 capping comb honey in sections when 

 the escapes are put on. We do not 

 vrant any theory on the subject — we 

 want experience. We are pretty safe 

 in presuming that the Reese and the 

 Dibbern bee-escapes will work alike 

 in this regard, but the Reese escape 

 has been in use a short time, and the 

 Dibbern never has. 



Newton, Iowa. 



WINTERING-. 



Suggestions Regarding; Bees in 

 tiie Cellar In Winter. 



Read at the Ohio State Convention 



BY F. A. EATON. 



I will try to give a few of the points 

 of advantage in cellar-wintering. In 

 the first place, it gives one in this 

 northerlj' latitude, the privilege of 

 using the most convenient and har;dy of 

 all hives, the single-walled Langstroth-; 

 best for summer and spring, because 

 the rays of the sun penetrate and warm 

 it the most quickly. Then, it is far 

 the most convenient for all manipula- 

 tions by the apiarist, compared to the 

 large, double-walled hive. 



The cellar is the only safe way 

 known for wintering bees in any single- 

 walled hive. The beekeeper who 

 makes a sjiccialty of bees, or one whose 

 bees are his main hope of support, if 

 he is a man who has any care or 

 solicitude for the queen and the little 

 workers, he does not want any guess- 

 work about his bees coming through 

 the winter, for he may grow gray from 

 worry in one short winter. 



Bees should be prepared for the 

 cellar in September, by seeing that all 

 colonies light in stores have a plentj'. 

 Feed them up to 25 or 30 pounds ; and 

 one of the best ways to feed at this 

 time in the fall, to prevent robbing, is 

 by I'emoving empty frames and sup- 

 plj'ing frames of sealed honey. I find 

 that natural stores are the safer for 

 wintering in-doors, provided that the 

 proper conditions are acquired in the 

 cellar. Your cellar should be an un- 

 der-ground one, as an up-ground re- 

 pository is entirely too sensitive to the 

 changes of the weather. 



A good, dry, under-ground cellar 

 can be kept very near the desired tem- 

 perature all winter. The bee-cellar 

 must be strictly a bee-cellar — not a cel- 

 lar for general purposes, filled with 

 vegetables and what not, subject to 

 distui'bance by too frequent visits. It 

 should be a perfect dungeon ; there 

 should not lie the slightest ray of light, 

 or the bees in their warm and normal 

 condition will fly to it and never get 

 back to their hives. I had a farmer 

 neighbor living a few miles away, who 

 came to me last spring and asked, 

 " How does it come that my bees die 

 in the cellar ?" I heard that he win- 

 tered them that way, and supposed it 

 was the best. He never read a bee- 

 paper. I asked him what kind of a 

 cellar he had for bees ; he replied, 

 "0,1 have a good one; taters and 

 apples never freeze in it, and then I 

 give them plenty of light so they could 

 find their hives." 



To start a tier of hives, place two 

 2x4 scantling on the floor of the cellar, 

 just far enough apart to set a hive on, 

 and far enough from the wall to admit 

 a person between the wall and the 

 hives. Now place two more scantling 

 in the same way. about 6 inches from 

 the first two ; this gives room for 

 reaching in between the two tiers to 

 place the blocks under the hives. 



It is now read}' for the hives to be 

 carried in. To winter successfully in 

 the cellar, the hives must have loose 

 bottom-boards, and the}' are in the best 

 condition when the top is hermetically 

 sealed by the bees. 



Upward ventilation is very injurious, 

 and is liable to cause bee-diarrhea ; 

 but if it did not cause that disease, it 

 would be ruinous to the bees toward 

 spring when they begin to breed. 



They could not raise the temperature 

 inside the hive above that of the out- 

 side, as there would be a constant cir- 

 culation of the air to carry off the 

 heat. 



Select a cool day, when the mercury 

 is a little below freezing, and, if pos- 

 sible, an experienced person, or at 

 least one that is not nervous, to help 

 carry them in. They should be carried 

 with great care, so as to cause as little 

 di.sturbanee as possible. 



Remove the roof of the hive in the 

 yard, as it would take up unnecessary 

 room in the cellar. Have a basket of 

 sawdust with you to close up the en- 

 trance of the hive with, while you are 

 carrying them in. Build up the two 

 tiers on the four scantlings prepared 

 as you go along, placing the backs of 

 the hives in the two tiers together, and 

 build them up as high as the cellar 

 will admit. You should have a lot of 

 oblong blocks one inch square pre- 

 pared ahead. 



As fast as a hive is put in its place, 

 raise it from the bottom-board, and 

 place one of these blocks under each 

 corner. This raises the hive one inch 

 from the bottom all around, and gives 

 all the ventilation necessary, which is 

 a good circulation of air under the 

 frames. It also prevents molding. 

 With this under ventilation only, there 

 is no sweating, or condensing of mois- 

 ture, which is so injurious and hard to 

 prevent out-of-doors. Who has not 

 seen the water trickle from the en- 

 trance of out-door hives on a cold day, 

 and freeze in icicles, or close up the 

 entrance entirely ? By this raising of 

 the hive from the bottom-board, it 

 gives plenty of room for dead bees to 

 drop, and not clog up the entrance. 



The cellar needs but little, if any, 

 ventilation — the only ventilation I give 

 is to open the door after dark, two or 

 three times a week, and leaving it open 

 a few hours until the air is changed, 

 and the mercury gone down a couple 

 of degrees. The proper degree at 

 which to keep the cellar is no longer 

 an experiment, as it has been well 

 established by many to be near 45^. 



Cellar-wintering is the only plan 

 which places bee-keeping on a solid 

 basis with other business. Who, in 

 other business, would invest money in 

 anything that would be likly to lose 

 the entire principal, or nearly so, every 

 year, nine times out of ten, as it is with 

 out-door wintering ? True, there are 

 a few experts like Mr. A. I. Root, who 

 can winter bees out-of-doors success- 

 fully, but there are many who cannot. 

 Therein lies a secret, why so many be- 

 ginners fail. They start with but few 

 bees, which is proper, the fewer the 

 better — not enough to pay for fixing 

 up a cellar to winter in, thinking that 

 they will do so when they reach their 



