THE AMERICAN BEE- KEEPER 



163 



Various Points on the Win- 

 tering Question. 



BY K. K. NAIiTY. 



It is a growing sentiment among 

 apiarists that it' the other ilems are 

 put right the relative importance of 

 ventilation is so small that it may 

 safely be left to the care of itself. To 

 put it differently, the idea is that un- 

 der ordinary circumstances hees will 

 be practically certain to command all 

 the oxygen they need, if other things 

 are all right. I am not quite sine 

 that this is the truth — would he glad 

 to know— and guess I am in a large 

 and honorable company right there. 



A very favorable point is to have 

 bees so conditioned that the cluster 

 can touch, or nearly touch, a warm, 

 dry surface overhead. A cluster 

 formed touching the lop, and stores 

 below them, is very much safer than 

 a cluster formed away down and stores 

 above them. But here the ventilating 

 item may come in again. Some ex- 

 periments I have read not long ago 

 indicate that thin glass, made warm 

 by soft packing above it, will not do 

 where a cluster of bees is to hug it 

 from underneath. If this is so I pre- 

 sume thin metal would work the same 

 way. The rational idea seems to be 

 that the bees, hemmed in at a high 

 temperature against the impervious 

 glass, are suffocated. Fortunately 

 glass and metal surfaces for the win- 

 tering chamber are not common. 

 Wood, and enamel cloth, and plaster, 

 and the various forms of baked or 

 dried clay, are all sufficiently pervi- 

 ous to oxygen that they may be 

 hugged without danger to the little 

 fellows who can't get out. 



All know that first-class, perfectly 



healthy food lo win t r on is a favor- 

 able item. Few keep in mind, I fear, 

 how great is the relative importance 

 of this one thing. It appears to largely 

 outweigh all other things put together. 

 Most bee investigators have at times 

 stood back ami scratched their heads 

 in utter puzzlement to see where some 

 colony had come through splendidly 

 when almost every condition supposed 

 to pertain to suceessful wintering had 

 been violated. I think that these 

 puzzles do not show that our estab- 

 lished principles are wrong, but only 

 that the colony in question had excel- 

 lent food, and enough of it ; and hav- 

 ing that, all the unfavorable things 

 weighed too little to sink them. To 

 take away the natural stores of the 

 bees, except in the cases where they 

 are known to be excellent , and to give 

 them other stores to winter on seems 

 to be the only certain method. This 

 of course must be done before the 

 war ii weather is over, that the stores 

 given may have the full benefit of 

 bee-chemistry before the cheilosis go 

 into their semi-dormant condition. 

 Granulated sugar syrup, well finished 

 and sealed, with a little pollen in the 

 hive, but not very much, can hardly 

 fail if a decent care is exercised about 

 other things. 



But what about the crowd of us, 

 mvself among the number, that would 

 have to go out of the business if ex- 

 tracting and refeeding was the only 

 way of success? It takes money to 

 buy sugar and pay for the labor re- 

 quired ; and in some places where 

 bees are kept the whole profit per 

 hive will not pay it. The further 

 fact is, that though the matter of food 

 does outweiglit all other things, when 

 all the other things are made as 



