1873.] 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Little Things. 



(TTiese, Mr. Editor, I must class with my 

 "Jottings from the Apiary,'' in July number 

 of the present volume.) 



It is an old axiom, " Save the pennies and 

 the dollars will save themselves." Why 

 may we not coin a similar one for the apiary ? 

 "Do little things for your bees (and at the 

 proper time), in return they will do great things 

 for you." And now for a few little things : 



Feeding. — If the honey product is scarce in 

 the fall, feed to induce the breeding of young 

 bees for wintering; feed in the spring to in- 

 duce breeding, and have each stock strong for 

 the honey harvest, and for making swarms. 



Supers. — Do not extract honey, or place supers 

 on or around your hives until you are satisfied 

 the winter home of each colony is filled with 

 stores. 



Extracting — Remove supers and extract honey 

 as fast as it is in proper condition. Honey 

 should never be extracted until the combs have 

 been sealed by the bees. In extracting during 

 a scarcity of honey, be careful to leave no honey 

 exposed; nothing will induce robbing so soon, 

 especially in the fall, as the careless use of the 

 extractor. 



Robbing. — The most complete check upon 

 robbing bees is to place a bunch of grass, or 

 wet hay, over the entrance to the hive. The 

 bees will find their way to the entrance to their 

 own hive, the robbers will be caught by the 

 sentinels in passing through the grass, and soon 

 cease their pilfering. 



The King Bird. — Kill him wherever you find 

 him. It is true, he generally confines himself 

 to the destruction of drones, but I have this 

 summer lost two very fine queens (and probably 

 more), from his gluttony. He will often leave 

 his perch and snap up a worker from the blos- 

 som of the clover. Kill him, open his maw, 

 and you will be satisfied. 



Worms. — Have entrance blocks, with passages 

 cut in them, at the mouth of evei'y hive. Ex- 

 amine them every morumg, and you will be 

 surjjrised how much you can aid your bees in 

 destroying the worm which produces the bee- 

 moth. 



Combs. — Both full and empty combs should 

 be loell brimstoned before jDutting away, or using 

 for a new swarm. It is well also to brimstone 

 supers full of honey or empty comb, and then 

 store them in the cellar or other cool place. 



Water. — Be sure to have a number of troughs, 

 with corn-cobs and gravel placed in them, and 

 filled with pure water, sitting around your 

 apiaiy ; a little salt thrown occasionally into 

 the water is also a great help. 



Spiders and Ants. — Destroy all spiders and 

 spider-webs around the hives, and thereby save 

 the lives of many of your bees. Ants do but 



little harm, merely seeking the hive for the 

 warmth afforded by the bees, with which to 

 hatch their brood. 



To Correspondents. — Please date all your arti- 

 cles, and give us your residence, (county and 

 State), as the experiments you kindly relate for 

 our instruction may not be at all practical in 

 our locality. " B." 



JBeaver, Fa., July 25, 1873. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Wintering Bees, 



There is no question that so deeply concerns 

 bee keepers as how to winter bees successfully. 

 If a man does not get much honey, or does not 

 get a good price for it, but has his bees left, he 

 can try again with the hope of doing better 

 next time ; but if his bees die in wintering, the 

 goose that lays the golden egg is dead ! 



Throughout the northwest there are aftore 

 bees lost every year in wintering than from all 

 other causes combined. Last spring found, at 

 the lowest estimate, nine-tenths of all the bees 

 in Iowa and Illinois, dead. One man of my 

 acquaintance lost over three hundred stands. 

 Many persons having from ten to twenty stands 

 lost every one. 



I have kept from twenty to forty stands in 

 the common Langstroth hive over eleven winters. 

 During ten of these I wintered them in the cel- 

 lar, and lost altogether three stands that ran out 

 of honey. For the last four years I have not 

 lost any. The other winter — the winter of 

 1865-6 — on account of having too many irons 

 in the fire, I neglected my bees and left them 

 on their summer stands, and by the middle of 

 February fourteen stands (just one half) were 

 dead. I dug the others out of the snow drifts, 

 put them in the cellar and saved all of them. 



Having had such uniform success in wintering 

 in the cellar and having examined the circum- 

 stances of many who have failed, I have thought 

 I might help others by giving a few of the prin- 

 ciples by which I am governed in my operations. 

 I will state them in the order of their import- 

 ance. 



1. The room in which bees are wintered, be it 

 cellar, bee house, or clamp, must be of an even 

 temperature, about 38° Fahrenheit, not going 

 below 32° nor above 44°. 



If it is too cold the bees will eat too much, 

 fill themselves with fixeces and have the dysen- 

 tery. If it is too warm they will be uneasy and 

 want to get out of the hive. 



2. The bees shoidd be put into the cellar or 

 bee house, early, or on the first really cold day. 



If they stay out for some time after they have 

 flown they will be partially filled with faeces, 

 will be uneasy all winter and smear their hives 

 badly before spring. If they stay out late there 

 will be some moisture, perhaps frost, collected 

 in the hive, and they should go in as dry as 

 possible. My bees wintered better last winter 



