and by being assisted, will winter bet- 

 ter ; but such years as this, is the time 

 to make a fair test. Many may differ 

 with me, but I would like them to re- 

 port briefly their experience and obser- 

 vation, in the American Bee Jour- 

 nal, next spring. 



Bees are on the wing to-day (Dec. 

 2d,) and have been almost every day up 

 to this time, here in the center of the 

 State. 



Mr. Perry said he found bees to win- 

 ter best on a few frames with chaff 

 cushions taking the place of the combs 

 removed. 



The President had found very little 

 difference in his opinion. 



The sense of the Convention was that 

 bees were likely to winter well with 

 proper care. 



House Apiaries and Cellar Wintering. 



The Secretary read the following 

 essay : 



" Do house apiaries winter bees as 

 well as cellars V I think not. House 

 apiaries, I presume, are much improved 

 since I used one. Nineteen years have 

 elapsed since I abandoned the house 

 apiary. Twenty-one years ago last 

 spring, I built the first house apiary I 

 ever saw, or heard of. It was so con- 

 structed as to hold 56 hives of bees ; 

 it was 32 feet long, and 10 wide, with a 

 7 foot story ; the lumber dressed, and it 

 was well painted. I used it 2 years and 

 then abandoned it as a house apiary, 

 and fitted it up for a honey house, and 

 still use it as such. 



It seemed to be defective in several 

 particulars : First, the bees were too 

 cold in severe cold weather ; the wall 

 being only single. Second. It seemed 

 to be too cool in early spring, to facili- 

 tate brood-rearing, as rapidily as colo- 

 nies in the open air that received the 

 rays of the sun on fine days. Third. 

 The worst of all were its summer 

 defects. The first colonies that filled 

 their hives with bees clustered on the 

 wall of the house, the bees from ad- 

 jacent hives, on their return from the 

 fields would light upon the clustering 

 bees, on the wall, and one colony grew 

 too strong, while others became weaker. 



My experience in cellar wintering 

 dates back only 15 years. During that 

 period, the average number of colonies 



Eut into winter quarters, I suppose, has 

 een about 150 per annum. The loss 

 has been so slight, up the present, with 

 all that were in a fair condition for 

 winter and put up at the right time 

 (Nov.) and taken out at the breaking 

 up of winter, that I feel perfectly satis- 

 fied. Last spring I lost about 50 out of 



285 colonies, by spring dwindling. These 

 were, with others under the care of a 

 hand 6 miles from my house, they were 

 left out until the coldest weather in 

 January and then were brought home 

 on the snow, and put into the cellar, full 

 of ice, which ran out in streams of 

 water as it melted. Life was shortened 

 by a cold damp hive for the balance of 

 the winter, the old bees disappeard be- 

 fore young ones were reared to take 

 their place. Three things must be ob- 

 served in the successful wintering of 

 bees : Pood, heat and air. The great 

 epidemic (bee cholera, or dysentery) is 

 doubtless produced in the absence of a 

 proper amount of heat, but never in 

 the heat of summer. 



A. Salisbury. 



Mr. Perry, said he was troubled about 

 transferring bees and buying wax, but 

 found that cellar wintering, last season, 

 furnished more wax than all other 

 methods combined. 



Mr. Martin, Hesperia, lost 80 out of 

 100 colonies last season. They were 

 wintered in the cellar, but dwindled in 

 April. 



Mr. Easton, Albion, had kept bees 40 

 years, but had used modern hives only 

 2 years. He thought chaff packing 

 preferable, and wintered in that manner 

 54 out of 55 colonies, last season, and 

 has 100 in chaff now, and expects to 

 safely winter them. 



Mr. C. B. Smith fayored using chaff. 



Mr. Perry said wherever he had found 

 an apiary where bees were wintered in 

 chaff, he never found wax for sale. 



President Stevenson, had used chaff 

 4 years .. id and had lost only 5 colonies. 



J. H. l^bertson, Pewamo, had win- 

 tered for years in a cellar, and believed 

 it to be the safest, cheapest and best 

 means now known for wintering bees. 

 One winter water stood in his cellar 

 more than a foot deep and his bees 

 never wintered better. He took no 

 stock in the theory that damp cellars 

 would not winter bees. One of his 

 neighbors, S. K. Marsh, wintered 80 

 colonies without loss with 2 feet of 

 water in his cellar all the winter. 



J. Butler & Son, Jackson, gave their 

 method of wintering in chaff for the 

 last 10 years. Their experience shows 

 that they have wintered almost without 

 loss during all the winter trials of the 

 last decade. They said they would not 

 take the best house apiary, winter de- 

 pository or cellar, ever made, as a gift 

 to winter bees in. 



Mr. Robertson, remarked that the 

 chaff hives of his neighborhood were 

 mostly of the common type, and they 

 had been essentially a failure in winter- 

 ing bees 



