THE AMERICAN APIGULTURIST. 



37 



replacing them in the centre of the 

 brood-nest with empty combs or 

 frames filled with foundation. If 

 the bees gather a large quantity of 

 fall honey the bee-master must use 

 his judgment in the matter, supply- 

 ing room for surplus. 



After the colonies have finished 

 storing fall honey and the brood is 

 all hatched out, I remove the fall 

 honey to the storehouse keeping it 

 for another season for the young 

 swarms to use while rearing their 

 brood. In place of this fall honey 

 thus removed I give combs filled 

 with sugar syrup food. Upon this 

 the colonies will feed during the 

 winter. As a final arrangement I 

 lay two one inch square sticks cross- 

 wise over the frames to enable the 

 bees to pass from one comb to the 

 other, then cover with two thick- 

 nesses of burlap or porous cloth 

 and cover the whole with packing 

 such as has been described to the 

 depth of four inches except over 

 the centre of the brood-nest. Thus 

 fed and packed on the summer 

 stands no colonies need be lost dur- 

 ing winter. 



In 1882 I went into winter quar- 

 ters with sixty colonies. In 1883, 

 I had eighty-four colonies and I 

 did not lose one of them. Nov. ] 5, 

 1882, I put into the cellar a num- 

 ber of colonies of bees in old hives 

 with movable frames, fed on su- 

 gar S3'rup food (as by my former 

 description). By some mistake one 

 colony was left in the cellar until 

 June 29, 1883, when my little 

 girl informed me there were bees in 

 the cellar ; and upon examination I 

 was wonderfully astonished to find 

 the colony in a perfectly healthy 

 condition, lively and no traces of 

 dysentery which was remarkable as 

 the colony which was a small one, 

 had been confined about 224 days 

 and was removed from the cellar 

 when my other bees were nearly 

 through with swarming. It was 

 amusing to see what a grand fly 



they had after their long winter's 

 repose. 1 



In this connection I would give 

 my method of transferring bees. 

 I do not transfer until late in the 

 fall when the hive is the most free 

 from brood and when I am prepar- 

 ing them for winter. I then drum 

 out the bees running them into a 

 hive containing a set of combs filled 

 with sugar syrup food. 



Now, if there be any brood, I cut 

 it out and transfer it into frames 

 placing it in the centre of the 

 brood-nest after which I pack and 

 prepare the bees for winter. There 

 are valuable features in this method. 

 First, you are not obliged to stop 

 during the busy season to attend 

 to this work. Second, as all bee- 

 keepers are aware, if the bees are 

 transferred in the spring and the 

 season proves a poor one, while 

 the expert may overcome this and 

 build up in time for winter, yet 

 with the beginner disastrous re- 

 sults are almost certain to follow 

 on account of the bees not properly 

 building up in time for winter. 



While I consider strictly pure ^ 

 sugar syrup food, properly sealed, 

 the best thing for winter stores 

 (pure clover and bass wood honey 

 free from fall honey are good, but 

 more expensive), yet I would cau- 

 tion my brother beekeepers never 

 on any account to allow one ounce 

 of it to be placed in with the surplus 

 honey. 



I trust that these few hints may 

 prove beneficial to your readers. 



HiLAs D. Davis. 



EXCHANGES. 



Apiculture and Agriculture, 

 BY T. J. M. (continued). — That 

 the nutritive qualit}' of the plants 

 in anj^ growing crop is not dimin- 

 ished by the abstraction of honey 



1 Perhaps those bees hibernated ( ?) EdJ 



