1871.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



195 



seemed to be excellent practical hints. He said 

 that in the managenielit of bees no one must 

 ever show the white feather. They did not like 

 drunken breath. lie opposed the use of tobacco 

 smoke as injurious, and recommended the use of 

 the smoke of rags or rotten wood instead. Some ' 

 farmers, he said, gave their bees all the inatten- 

 tion they could. For such farmers, or bee I 

 keepers, he thanked God for the moth. There | 

 were an abundance of hives patented, and but j 

 few of them worth having. He favored large 

 boxes as best adapted to having large supplies of 

 surplus honey laid up. He gave, in detail, hints 

 for the care of bees during all seasons of the year. 

 His address, or rather essiiy, was warmly re- 

 ceived, and the association tendered him its 

 thanks. 



Mr. Clark, of the Committee on Business, sub- 

 mitted the following order of business, which 

 was accepted : 



Order of Business. 



1. The most successful winter management 

 of bees. 



2. The best method of artificial swarming. 



3. How far is it wise to prevent swarming? 



4. Are hybrids better than pure Italians. 



5. Volunteer topics. 



The First Topic 



came up for discussion. Mr. Hosmer, of Minn., 

 said his experience was that small swarms win- 

 tered better indoors than large ones. He 

 Avintered in a cellar well ventilated. He did not 

 want less than a quart of bees to a swarm. He 

 preserved queen bees and divided his swarms. 

 He fed them about live jjounds of crushed sugar 

 (to each swarm) per year, commencing in March. 



Dr. Bohrer, of Ind., said that a large colony 

 and a small colony would not winter well 

 together in the same room, owing to large colo- 

 nies generating an undue amount of animal heat. 

 The small colonies, under such circumstances, 

 were apt to contract disease. He would have a 

 special repository for small colonies, Avhere the 

 thermometer might be permitted to range about 

 45'^ or 50'^, while between 83 and 40 degi-ees 

 Fahrenheit was the temperature favorable for 

 large colonies. 



Dr. Bohrer would u.se an old blanket in cover- 

 ing hives, and corn cobs for the top of them to 

 prevent the accumulation of moisture. He would 

 not have a hive more than 12 inches deep. He 

 believed in perfect neatness in his bee house. 

 He was an enemy to spiders. 



Question by a delegate — Would not spider- 

 webs be a good moth trap '? 



Mr. Bohrer — The best moth trap is a strong 

 colony of bees. [Laughter.] 



Mr. Gallup was hostile to tall hives. They 

 became too hot at the top. 



Mr. Gallup was subjected to a running fire of 

 questions. He used no honey board in his large 

 hives. 



Mr. Gallup stated that he put his large colonies 

 near the floor in the wintering house, and the 

 small ones near the top or roof. 



Mr. Dallas, of Kansas, thought the indoor 



method of wintering best. He would have a 

 deep, well-drained trench upon dry ground. 

 Over this he would build a double walled house, 

 the interstices between the walls filled with saw- 

 dust, the house provided with ventilators and 

 double doors. In this he would put the bees 

 after equalizing the swarms. Care must be 

 taken to protect from dampness and too great a 

 change of temperature in the ventilation from 

 opening the door or the special appliances for the 

 purpose. 



Mr. King, of New York, said he called a hive 

 ten and a half inches in depth, as spoken of by 

 Mr. Gallup, a deep one. He recommended the 

 construction of a winter bee-house, so as to 

 answer the purpose of handling bees, taking 

 honey from them, &c. 



Mr. Wright, of Indiana, said he had found 

 benefit to diseased swarms from putting a cloth 

 over the top of the hive and placing fresh char- 

 coal pulverized upon it. This absorbed im- 

 purities and improved the health of the bees. 



Mr. Porter, of Minnesota, detailed an account 

 of a travel north in his State into the Red river 

 country. He thought he had gotten away from 

 the bees, as he had inquired for a hundred miles 

 for them, and found none ; but at the head 

 waters of the Red river of the North he found au 

 Indian who said he had found bees near there 

 (it was 200 miles north of St. Paul), and taken 

 two pailfuls of honey from them. 



He detailed how he had kept bees in a cellar 

 in which he had four hundred bushels of rutaba- 

 gas. "It is no trick at all to raise bees, and no 

 trick at all to winter them. Thermometers were 

 humbugs. He had known bees wintered without 

 a particle of ventilation in a pit covered with 

 straw, then a little water, then dirt. He did not 

 believe in the different diseases that it was said 

 bees had. Their diseases were in nineteen times 

 out of twenty, and the twentieth time too, caused 

 by uneasiness. 



Mr. Clark, of Toronto, Canada, said that Sir 

 Robert Peel used to say in Parliament, "Ireland 

 is my difficulty." He would say wintering bees 

 was his difficulty. His experience was that the 

 best \yiiitering temperature was about the freez- 

 ing point. He believed that no rule could be 

 laid down for wintering bees in all climates. In 

 Toronto, Avhere he lived, the thermometer was 

 IG* below zero last Sunday. Here he found it 

 disagreeably warm. His experience was that the 

 best temperature was such a one as would keep 

 the bees in a torpid state, and keep them at the 

 same time supplied with fresh air. 



Mrs. Tupper, of Brighton, Iowa, said that for 

 twelve years she had been successful in cellar 

 wintering. 



Mr. Scott, of Kentucky, said that he lived as 

 far south as the Blue Grass region, and would 

 like to hear about outdoor wintering. 



Mr. A. F. Moon, of Michigan, said he had 

 found the best success in outdoor wintering. 

 He equalized his colonies before winter came. 

 He sheltered them from the sun and on the north 

 and west sides from the weather. He found they 

 consumed one-third more honey iii this way than 

 in indoor wintering. He divided the bee bread, 

 so as to equalize the food for different stocks. 



