178 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



July 



many good bee-keepers differ with me 

 in going into winter quarters with 

 young bees, but I have given you my 

 honest experience, and in conclusion 

 would say, try the above plan in a 

 small way at any rate and satisfy 

 yourself. 



Steeleville, 111. 



Hives for Wintering. 



BY ED JOLLY. 



I read with much interest the arti- 

 cle on wintering bees in tall hives by 

 Jno. F. Gates page 145. And as he 

 solicits the experience and opinions 

 of others, I will give mine and I may 

 find it necessary to indulge in a little 

 friendly criticism of Bro. Gates's 

 system. He is quite right when he 

 says the most serious drawback to 

 bee-keeping in the North is the long 

 cold winter. It has deterred many 

 from taking up bee-keeping, it has 

 driven many from the field with dis- 

 couragement and it has even cut off a 

 good slice of the profits of those who 

 have remained in the ranks. And so 

 he says until the bee-keeper can win- 

 ter his bees with the same assured 

 success that he can his other live stock 

 bee-keeping will never attain its pro- 

 per place along with other rural in- 

 dustries. He calls attention to the 

 fact that with all our costly repositor- 

 ies, expenisve hives with double walls, 

 packing, dead air spaces etc., we have 

 never attained anything like the suc- 

 cess in wintering we had with the old 

 box hive. I agree with him in every- 

 thing so far. But when he comes to 

 the remedial plan I can not agree with 

 him. He advocates the use of tall 

 box hives to be used as a nursery for 

 breeding bees and casting off swarms 

 which are to be hived in small shallow 



hives and from these swarms must 

 come the sole crop of surplus. Hives 

 28 in. tall, he didn't give the other 

 dimensions, but the height of the hive 

 would necessitate its being at least a 

 foot square to make it stand up safely. 

 Now if a hive of this size is a good 

 swarmer it must be a revelation to 

 those fellows who have been advocat- 

 ing a large hive and claiming non- 

 swarming on account of its size as one 

 of its prime features, when in reality 

 their large hive is a third smaller then 

 this one which is especially kept as a 

 swarmer. But be that as it may the 

 other disadvantages of the box hive 

 system are suflicient to bar against 

 its coming in general favor. The 

 apiarist has absolutely no control over 

 his bees. Here is a colony who are 

 too cross to be tolerated, another 

 whose bees presist in hanging idly on 

 the front of the hive, another whose 

 queen is not prolific and does not get 

 strong enough to swarm and thus de- 

 feats the very purpose of the breeding 

 box. These and other undesirable 

 qualities which are easily weeded out 

 by superseding the queen are here 

 allowed to remain and multiply for 

 want of this license. Another thing, 

 the overabundance of drones in 200 

 of these hives would consume a good 

 share of all the honey that a moderat- 

 ly good locality would yield. I know 

 some would say that as no surplus was 

 expected from these hives it wouldn't 

 matter about their drones but the for- 

 age field most support them besides 

 being forced to support double the 

 number of colonies that are giving a 

 surplus. Now we have looked on the 

 summer side of this system, we will 

 return to the winter. He says in the 

 fall we can make an auction and sell 



