Feb. 1, 1906 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



99 



of bees and ' 2 acre of strawberries for two years, with 

 about $150 to spare, besides increasing from 12 to 66 colo- 

 nies of bees. But, of course, those were good seasons. The 

 season of 1905 was a poor one for honey here. 



I find strawberries very profitable, and go well with 

 bees, except that it keeps me jumping when swarming and 

 strawberry picking come together. 



I have sold as high as $18.75 worth of strawberries from 

 one day's picking. I hire the neighbors' children to help 

 pick berries, and pay them by the quart. I also pay my own 

 children the same price. I have no trouble to sell the ber- 

 ries, as I make a trip 5 or 6 miles with a buggy or spring- 

 wagon load every afternoon when the berries are at their 

 best. In this way I get lots of direct customers for berries, 

 and I am able to furnish many of them with honey. My 

 fruit-business helps me sell honey. 



I also have a pear orchard, which is yielding well. I 

 have 1100 pear-trees ranging from 3 to 7 years old. The 

 Kieffer and Tyson trees bore abundantly the past year. 

 The April freeze killed nearly all the blossoms on the 

 Duchess, Wilder and Anjou pear-trees, so I got only a few 

 from those varieties. I am still master of the blight situa- 

 tion. 



A large pear-orchard helps the bees, as they blossom 

 about 5 days earlier than the apple, and, by the way, the 

 bees hum among the blossoms. I think the pear yields at 

 least as well, if not better, than the apple. 



My apiary at present contains 74 colonies — 12 colonies 

 in the cellar and the rest on the summer stands. 



J. E. Johnson. 



Mr. Johnson is one of the most successful bee-keepers 

 in Illinois. He is also a frequent contributor to current bee- 

 literature, and has opinions of his own, as well as a nice 

 little family, evidently. 



He has quite a number of businesses, which seem to 

 combine in a way to keep himself and all his family em- 

 ployed. And, judging from the foregoing, none, aside from 

 the bees, seem to be "working for nothing and boarding 

 themselves." 



Place to Be Robbed.— Petit Almanach des Abeilles 

 gives the following as one of the signs at the entrance of 

 a restaurant : " If you want good honey, don't go elsewhere 

 to be robbed ; enter here." 



+ (Lontnbuteb + 

 Special Ctrticles 



j 



Wintering Bees on Solid Sealed Combs 



By J. In BVER 



A NICE position to be in, truly ! Either keep quiet after 

 being cornered by figures, or else in attempting to 

 squirm out of the trap run the risk of making our genial 

 Dr. Miller confess that " he did not know as much as he 

 thought he did." Not a fair shake, Doctor. And before 

 going any farther you must pledge yourself not to make any 

 such manifestly absurd confession. 



As to Mr. Dadant and myself trying to look good-natured 

 over the matter, why, Doctor, it would be a libel to insinuate 

 that it was possible to look or feel otherwise when debating 

 any question with so courteous an opponent as Mr. D." 



Of course, I had the best of Mr. Dadant, in that he failed 

 to "produce the goods." He and the Doctor simply gave 

 the " why and wherefore," while I can trot out actual expe- 

 rience of at least two of the most practical apiarists in On- 

 tario to back up my position. 



Dr. Miller has laid down a proposition something like 

 this: 



" Resolved, That bees in sealing cells leave about % of an 

 inch between adjoining combs ; further, 



"Resolved, That not sufficient bees can congregate in 

 so small a space to keep one another warm. Therefore, 



"Resolved, That all bees thus congregated during pro- 

 tracted cold weather will die. 1 ' 



I am reminded of the story of a good old Scotch Presby- 

 terian, who, at a business meeting, said something like this : 



"Resolved, That the people of God shall inherit the 

 earth. Be it further 



"Resolved, That we are the people." 



But we are not told that he produced evidence in defense 

 of his proposition ; and just so Dr. Miller has not given evi- 

 dence to substantiate his claims. 



I am free to confess that previous to this discussion I 

 had not gone to the trouble to question why bees have win- 

 tered so well on solid sealed combs, being quite content in 

 feeling assured that they did winter well in that condition. 

 However, for Dr. Miller's benefit, I will go into details a 

 little. 



In the first place, only the ordinary space is left between 

 the frames and bottom-boards, and, on examination, I find 

 that the bees are not utilizing that to any extent. I use 

 unspaced hanging frames, lJ4-inch spacing, but when giv- 

 ing solid combs of honey in the fall I space them wider 

 apart, crowding them together early in the spring again. I 

 suppose the Doctor will see the solution of the mystery in 

 this confession ; but hold hard ! 



When I used to feed solid with sugar syrup the combs 

 were left with the ordinary ljs-inch spacing, and, further, 

 Mr. McEvoy uses a self-spacing rabbet, so it will be impos- 

 sible for him to practice wide spacing ; yet his bees don't 

 die during cold spells of weather — on the contrary, they al- 

 ways come through the winter warm enough to pile up a 

 great big surplus of honey. 



While at the Ontario convention last November, I was 

 talking to Mr. J. B. Hall again on this subject. Let me re- 

 peat a practical illustration he gave me there : 



During the extraordinary cold winter of 1903-04, at one 

 of Mr. Hall's yards he had quite a heavy loss — I forget just 

 the percentage, but believe it was about 20 out of the 100 

 colonies there. Twenty of these colonies were wintered on 

 solid sealed combs of the same size as Mr. Dadant uses. Not 

 one of these 20 died, but, with the exception of 1 queenless, 

 all were by all odds better in condition when the honey-flow 

 came on than were those that survived after being wintered 

 under " natural " conditions. As to how Mr. Hall spaces 

 his combs I am not positive, but as he is very exact and 

 particular, I have no doubt that he uses the orthodox l^i 

 spacing. As to Mr. Dadant and myself " talking about two 

 rather different things," I don't see it in that light. Mr. D. 

 made the unqualified statement that " a colony will not 

 winter well on combs that are entirely filled," saying noth- 

 ing as to conditions. 



One cm hardly conceive of a colony filling all of the 

 combs of the hive solid with honey, and wintering ; from 

 the fact that such a condition would be well-nigh impossible 

 with a queen in the hive. I remember once of a strong col- 

 ony being hived on a full set of combs during a heavy 

 honey-flow ; by some means the queen was lost and every 

 comb was in this case filled solid. It is needless to say they 

 did not winter; there were no bees left when the owner 

 found the condition of affairs in October. 



If the Doctor will pardon the suggestion, I will say that 

 possibly he is made to think that the bees would die between 

 the combs, from the well-known fact that a few isolated 

 bees to one side of the cluster always perish. With the con- 

 tracted hive the spaces are filled from one end of the hive 

 to the other, and from division-board to the side of the 

 hive — an entirely different condition of affairs. 



In conclusion, as in the case of my reply to Mr. Dadant, 

 I would ask Dr. Miller to test the matter, and then if he 

 finds we are wrong, I, for one, will crawl off in the corner 

 and attribute to "locality" the different results obtained 

 here in Ontario. Markham, Ont. 



Time of Cellaring Bees 



BY F. L. DAY 



IN one of Dr. Miller's " Straws," in the Jan. 1st Glean- 

 ings, he mentions putting his bees into the cellar Nov. 

 29. That was the very day I put mine in, here in north- 

 ern Minnesota. As a rule, I should expect to get them in 

 earlier, but this time circumstances were not favorable for 

 so doing. 



In the first place, I use a combined stand and bottom- 

 board, which I do not carry into the cellar. This makes it 

 necessary to wait for a temperature as low as 15 to 20 de- 

 grees above zero. Even then it is necessary to confine the 

 bees, for I have to move them about 25 rods to the cellar in 

 a gravel hillside. When a morning comes, which promises 

 to be cold enough to suit me I go out about 6 a. m. to raise 



