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THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



December 



Wintering Bees Successfully. 



BY CHAS. H. THIES. 



The question of how to successfully- 

 winter bees has often appeared and 

 has probably been answered as often, 

 therefore it may appear useless to 

 many of the older bee keepers to make 

 use of valuable space to further dis- 

 cuss this question, but we should re- 

 member that there are additions made 

 to the list of bee keepers each year 

 who may not be young in years but 

 yet are young in experience. The 

 suggestion may be made by some one 

 that these youngsters should get such 

 information from text books, to which 

 I agree to a certain extent, but are we 

 sure that those of us who claim to be 

 old in experience could not tumble 

 on to some improvement? For my 

 part I learn a little more year after 

 year. The first thing that should be 

 looked after is that each colony is 

 strong in bees, supplied with a good 

 queen, and last, but not least, each 

 colony should be well supplied with 

 honey and that of good quality. Don't 

 try to winter on from four to ten lbs. 

 per colony. This might and might 

 not be enough to carry them through 

 cold weather, i. e., until warm weath- 

 er in spring, but it will not carry them 

 through until more can be had in suffi- 

 cient quantities for their daily con- 

 sumption. Remember that the largest 

 amount of honey required to winter a 

 colony will be consumed when brood- 

 rearing commences in earnest. The 

 nest thing will be to give them some 

 protection, after first diminishing the 

 the size of hive according to size of 

 colony contained therein. .The protec- 

 tion I give my bees in this latitude is 

 an empty super filled full of fine soft 

 leaves, by first removing enameled 



sheets and replacing same with a thin 

 piece of muslin. I place the super 

 full of leaves on top of all ; this gives 

 upward ventilation enough to keep out 

 all moisture. After all other prepar- 

 ations have been made be sure to keep 

 them perfectly dry. A wet brood nest 

 is by far worse than a cold one. Look 

 out for leaky covers. If your covers 

 are not water tight, put on some old 

 boards of some kind, tilt your hives 

 forward a little so that water will run 

 off more readily. With the above 

 requisites out door wintering will 

 meet with success in this latitude and 

 those similar. 

 Steeleville, 111. 



^1 ■■■ ^ 



A Few Remarks. 



BY THE ASSISTANT EDITOR. 



That combs, when free from eggs 

 and larvse of the moth, may be kept 

 indefinitely is proven by an instance 

 which came to our notice a few weeks 

 ago. During the winter of 1890-91 a 

 friend to whom we had sold several 

 colonies of bees the summer previous, 

 lost them by suffocation. Thus dis- 

 couraged by the failure of his first ef- 

 fort, the combs were thrown into an 

 old zinc lined ice box with a close fit- 

 ting lid to await a convenient time to 

 melt them up, and were forgotten. 

 Upon opening the box recently, the 

 combs, some of which contained 

 considerable honey, were found 

 in as perfect condition as when placed 

 there five years ago, 



Bee keepers who have had no ex- 

 perience with commission men are 

 more than likely to save themselves 

 much annoyance by continuing to keep 

 their business strictly out of the hands 

 of the middlemen. Financial responsi- 



