152 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



patent. Just what that man claims 

 as a good thing, we rejected as being 

 impru(;tical. Have we not shown that 

 it is thoroiighl}' so? 



Packing bees for winter.— Double-wall 

 hives. 



We liave always contended that the 

 best place to winter bees is on the 

 summer-stands and in double- walled 

 hives. 



At a convention of beekeepers held 

 at Haldimand, Out., the question of 

 of "Preparing Bees for Winter" was 

 discussed. As the experience of sev- 

 eral beekeepers who were present has 

 been the same as our own I will quote 

 them here : — 



Mr. Khidree said he wintered his bees 

 in doubled-wiilled hives on the summer 

 stands. He first made sure that each col- 

 ony had a queen and plenty of food; 

 crowded tlie bees on as few frames as pos- 

 sible, and put a thick cu.sliion ou top of the 

 frames. 



Mr. Armstrong winters his bees in doub- 

 le-walled hives and in clamps, with un 

 abundance of packiiifj on top, and all 

 around the iiives. He did not like cluvor- 

 chafi'for packing, as it had a tendency to 

 heat and make the bees uneasy. 



The thick cushion on top of the 

 frames is a good thing, but the pack- 

 ing between the walls of the two hives 

 is all wrong. When we have so packed 

 the hives the combs near the walls of 

 the brood-chamber would mould badl}', 

 while tliose that had only a cushion 

 over the bees not only wintered the 

 best, but had no mouid}'^ combs. 



Now here is another way of not 

 wintering bees. 



Mr. G. B. Jones advocated taking all 

 tlie honey from the bees, and then killiug 

 them, buying new colonies in the spring. 

 For those who packed iheir bees he rec- 

 ommended the use of hair-felt. He said 

 it was very necessary to liav^^ young bees 

 instead of old ones, as old ones eat more 

 honey than youn<i ones; and gave two 

 plans of getting rid of all old bees, the one 

 lie preferred being to cage the queen dur- 

 ing the month of August, so that she could 

 not lay, then releasing her, and all tlie bees 

 reared after that would be young. 



There reader, did you ever read or 

 hear of anything so foolish as that ? 



If every body pi'actised that man's 

 method, wiiei-e would one find l)ees to 

 purchase in the spring? Tiie idea of 

 caging a queen in the montli of Au- 

 gust to prevent brood-rearing almost 

 makes me faint. Doesn't that fellow 

 know that the bees reared in August, 

 as well as those reared in September 

 are the bees that live over winter? 

 Why don't those bee cranks keep quiet 

 when they go to bee-conventions and 

 let practical and sensible men do the 

 talking? 



We want the bees that are reared in 

 the month of August to gather the 

 golden -rod honey in September and 

 fill our hives with winter stores. 



Large vs. small hives. 

 A good article from the pen of Mr. 

 Doolittle concerning the proper size 

 of hives ma}' be found in a recent is- 

 sue of the American Bee Jonrnal. 

 Once was the time I thought the 

 10-frame L. hive was the proper size. 

 I am not of that opinion now. I once 

 sold two colonies of bees in L. hives 

 that had been pi-epared for winter by 

 removing three of the brood-frames, 

 leaving but seven frames well filled 

 with good stoies for the bees to win- 

 ter on. It was my intention to replace 

 the three fiaines in the spring ; but as 

 the bees were twelve miles away the 

 matter escaped my mind. Well, the 

 result was that when I got a report 

 from those two hives of bees I at once 

 made up my mind that there would be 

 no more lO-frame hives used in the 

 Bay State A|)iary, and to that decision 

 I have adhered for the past ten years. 

 Although there were a dozen other col- 

 onies on 10-frames in the same apiary 

 as the two colonies purchased of me, 

 not one of them did as well as the two 

 colonies on the 8-frames. For several 

 years we have had in use hives having 

 not over eight frames, and several 

 hives with but seven frames. The sev- 

 en-frame hives do the best, and another 

 season we shall use but seven frames in 

 any of our L. hives, and eight frames 

 in our Bay States hive. The eight 



