THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



45 



to find plenty of buyers. It is only 

 the poor, unripe article that cannot be 

 sold, and which gives some of our 

 writers in the bee papers so much 

 trouble to find a way to dispose of 

 their honey. 



(Penna.) H. H. Flack. 



EXPOSE YOUll HIVES TO THE SIX. 



In a village in Germany, where the 

 number of bees kept was regulated by 

 law, a bad season had proved that the 

 place was overstocked, from the great 

 weakness of all the colonies* in the 

 neighborhood. There was but one 

 exception, that of an old man who 

 was generally set down as being no 

 wiser than his neighbors. The honey 

 harvest came round, and when he had 

 stored away double the quantity that 

 any of the rest had saved, he called 

 his friends and neighbors together, 

 took them into his garden, and said: 

 "If you had been more charitable in 

 your opinions, I would have told you 

 my secret before," and he pointed to 

 the facing of his hives — one degree 

 more to the east than was generally 

 adopted. The sun came upon his 

 hives an hour or two sooner by the 

 movement, and his bees were up and 

 stirring, and had secured a large snare 

 of the morning's honey before his 

 neighbors' bees had roused themselves 

 for the day. 



•, AND OUTDOOR WINTERING. 



The heavy fall of snow which we 

 have just had is very favorable for 

 outdoor wintering, and we would ad- 

 vise our readers not to shovel it away 

 from the hives, but if you have time 

 put a little more on with a snow 

 shovel. We would much rather have 

 ten feet of snow over hives than none 

 at all. 



A friend of ours once told us how 

 he had made a great mistake by dig- 

 ging away the snow from some of his 

 hives,, but at the same time learned a 

 valuable lesson. His apiary was sit- 

 uated in somewhat of a valley, and 

 one morning after a heavy fall of 

 snow which had been considerably 

 drifted, he looked out and was dis- 

 mayed to see his entire apiary buried 

 beneath the fleecy flakes. One por- 

 tion, however, was much worse than 

 the other — that at the north end 

 being buried in some places ten feet 

 deep. The south eud was not so bad, 

 and so he determined to clear what he 

 could and leave the rest to perish, as 

 he supposed. After considerable 

 shoveling he got about 25 colonies 

 pretty well cleared off, and by dint of 

 hard work managed to keep them clear' 

 till spring. When warm weather 

 came these 25 colonies were flying in 

 and out, while the snow was still ly- 

 ing upon the other portion. Think- 

 ing the latter were dead he paid no at- 

 tention to them till quite late in the 

 spring, when the tops of some of them 

 began to show above the snow, and 

 what was his surprise and delight to- 

 discover every colony in splendid con- 

 dition, some of them filled with brood r 

 and all ready for a good season's 

 work, while at the same time they had. 

 not consumed nearly so much stores 

 as those he kept clear of snow ! Upon 

 investigation he discovered that the 

 heat from the bees had melted spaces 

 about the hives varying in size from 

 a square foot to a square yard, and 

 the air from the hives became puri- 

 fied by contact with the snow, while 

 at the same time the temperature was- 

 kept so even and was so little affected 

 bv the cold breezes of winter that 



