310 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



fall. This will help me out, providing- 

 I can move them without injury to 

 them. Do you consider it a safe plan 

 to move bees one mile when the 

 time comes to put them in the cel- 

 lar? The cellar is on high ground and 

 will be stoned and cemented. 



Yours truly, 

 Fkank StoflEt. 

 Here is my letter to Mr. Stoflet: — 



Flint, Mich., July 20, 1904. 

 Frank Stoflet, 



Auburndale, Wis. 



Friend S. — Your good letter 

 of the 14th came duly to hand. You 

 are on the right track all right. Your 

 great stumbling block, so far, seems 

 to be the wintering problem. You 

 have a good location, and, by exper- 

 imenting, and trying different strains 

 of bees, you can finally get the best. 

 You are going to use the right size of 

 hive for producing comb honey. Your 

 choice of super arrangement is good. 

 The one great thing for you to study 

 now is that of wintering. If you can 

 only succeed in wintering your bees 

 year after year, you will soon have a 

 large apiary, and be spreading out 

 and establishing out-apiaries. Learn 

 to wilder your bees. That is the thing 

 for you to work for, and, if you suc- 

 ceed, you will be on the high-road to 

 prosper itj'. While I would rather put 

 the bees quietly into a cellar, instead 

 of moving them, I am inclined to think 

 that no harm will come from moving 

 them and putting them right into the 

 cellar The right kind of food, and 

 the right temperature are the two great 

 needs in wintering bees here in the 

 North. The late Capt. Hetherington, 

 of N. Y., so I was informed by his 

 brother, never made a success of win- 

 tering his bees until he adopted the 

 plan of feeding each colony about ten 

 pounds of sugar syrup after the har- 

 vest and the breeding season were past. 

 This syrup was stored in the center of 

 the hive, where the last brood had 

 hatched, and where the bees would be 

 more likely to cluster than elsewhere, 

 and this sugar was their principal 



food during tlie months of confinement. 

 With this sugar-feeding, and cellar- 

 wintering, the Captain became very 

 successful in wintering his bees, and 

 built them up into thousands of colo- 

 nies. Your location may not be such 

 as to require svich feeding, but I wish 

 that you would try it on a few colonies 

 this fall. Make a good thick sj'rup, 

 and feed it the latter part of Septem- 

 ber, or first of October — just about as 

 the last brood has hatched. Give 

 about ten pounds of sugar to each col- 

 on}'. Suppose you feed it to, say, 20 

 or 25 colonies. I would do this each 

 year until I became satisfied whether 

 it was of anj' benefit or not. If there 

 should come a winter when you lost 

 heavily of the colonies having natural 

 stores, and none, or very few, of those 

 having sugar, 3'ou would then know 

 that the sugar would help you through 

 every winter. If year after year pas- 

 ses with no advantage from the sugar, 

 then there would be no inducement to 

 continue its use. With the climate of 

 Wisconsin, it is quite likely that cel- 

 lar wintering will prove the better 

 plan, one year with another. I wish 

 you would make a little experiment 

 this fall and winter in regard to moving 

 the bees to your brother's cellar. Move 

 a few, say, 20 or 25 colonies, early 

 enough so that they will surely have a 

 chance to fly again before putting them 

 in the cellar. The disturbance of 

 mo\ ing them a mile will induce them 

 to mark their new location, and it is 

 not likely that many of the bees will 

 return to their old location. Even if a 

 few should come back, they would join 

 the colonies on the old location. Say 

 you feed 25 the sugar as suggested. 

 Then move ten of the sugar-fed colo- 

 nies and 15 of the others, early enough 

 so that they will have a flight, and 

 move the rest and put them right into 

 the cellar from the wagons. With this 

 plan you will then know, or be able to 

 know, whether the sugar-feeding has 

 helped any, and you will also know if 



