THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



375 



favorable conditions for brood rearing", 

 when the same expenditure of vitality 

 will produce two bees instead of one. 

 Therefore, don't allow a warm day or 

 two in winter to tempt you to the re- 

 moval of the bees from the cellar. 

 Wait until the snow is g"one, and there 

 is occasionally a day warm enough for 

 bees to fly, then take them out to re- 

 main permanently. On the other hand, 

 nothing is g^ained ; and much maybe 

 lost, by leaving- the bees in the cellar 

 until late in the spring-. Many claim 

 superior advantag-es for out-door win- 

 tering, asserting- that Ihe colonies bnild 

 up earlier in the spring-. They 

 won't if the bees are taken from the 

 cellar early enough; and, certainl}-, it 

 requires no argument to show that 

 bees successfully wintered in the cellar 

 are better able to bear the rough 

 weather of spring- than bees that have 

 endured all of the rigors of the entire 

 winter out of doors. In most of our 

 Northern States the main honey har- 

 vest comes early in the season, and to 

 secure this harvest there must be a 

 goodl}' number of field workers at the 

 rig/if time, and the eggs from which 

 these workers are produced must be 

 laid several weeks previous to the open- 

 in,"- of the harvest, hence the element of 

 tune is nn important factor, and noth- 

 ing stimulates a colony in a healthy 

 manner, and sets it to brood rearing, 

 as does a flight in the open air, even if 

 nothing is brought in. Hence it will 

 be seen that early removal from the 

 cellar gives the bees largely the ad- 

 vantages of both out-door and in-door 

 wintering. 



There is no danger of the cold in- 

 juring the bees when they are Jirst re- 

 moved from the cellar, the trouble 

 comes from late freezes coming after 

 two or three weeks of fine weather. 

 At this time the combs are filled with 

 brood, the cold drives the bees into a 

 compact cluster in the center of the 

 hive, and all of the brood outside of 

 this perishes. All of this loss may be 

 avoided by giving the bees some sort of 



protection after taking them from the 

 cellar. Plrst see that each colony has 

 a queen and plenty of stores, and then 

 protect it. This spring protection need 

 not be an elaborate affair. A sheet of 

 tarred building paper folded down 

 over the h've, and fastened at the lower 

 edges b3' tacking on strips of lath, will 

 answer every purpose, while it costs 

 only three cents, and can be put in 

 place in less than five minutes. This 

 makes a covering that is both wind and 

 water-proof, and will absorb every 

 particle of the sun's heat, but, more 

 important than all this, it will save the 

 loss of brood and weak colonies if there 

 comes a "squaw winter" in the month 

 of May. 



If spring protection is so important 

 that it is advisable to give it after tak- 

 ing- the bees from the cellar, it may be 

 asked, why not practice out-door 

 wintering-, then winter protection will 

 answer f jr spring, and the expense of 

 a cellar, and of carrying the bees in 

 and out, will be avoided ? In the first 

 place, the saving of stores in cellar 

 wintering- will pay fur the expense 

 twice over; and, in the next place, and 

 of far more importance, it is only by 

 the cellar method that the wintering of 

 bees, in a cold dim ite, can ever be 

 reduced to a perfect system. By a 

 selection of natural stores, or better 

 still, b}' using sugar, we can secure 

 uniformit}' of food, but it is onl}' in the 

 cellar, or special repository, that uni- 

 formity of te.nperature, at a desirable 

 point, can be maintained. 



Carrying the bees from the cellar is 

 not a very agreeable task, and most of 

 bee-keepers make it worse by attempt- 

 ing it upon such a warm day as to set 

 the bees nearl3' crazy the moment the 

 out-door air strikes them. It comes 

 into the cellar and sets the bees to fly- 

 ing, and often there is a general mix- 

 up in the yard by the bees of one col- 

 ony joining with those of another in 

 full flight, and following them into 

 their hive. To avoid these troubles, 

 some bee-keepers carry their bees out 



