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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL.. 



to be a fact, a wintering-cellar as nearly 

 perfect as present knowledge permits, 

 hence any cause of loss would be in the 

 condition of the colonies and hives them- 

 selves, and not in the place they were 

 kept. So I resolved to try several plans 

 of preparing the hives for winter. 



No. 1. — I prepared 25 hives as fol- 

 lows, and placed them in one division of 

 my new cellar : I gave each colony two 

 sections of my double hive, removing 

 two combs from each section, and leav- 

 ing eight combs in each. These eight 

 combs were spread to fill the 10-frame 

 hive. The hives were raised two inches 

 from the bottom-board ; when all was 

 quiet, a piece of light cotton cloth was 

 spread over each hive, and on top of 

 this was placed a shallow box (3 inches 

 deep) full of sawdust. The entrances 

 at the bottom were left open the entire 

 width of the hive, front and rear. Now, 

 remember these colonies were each left 

 on 16 combs in two sections of a shallow 

 hive, thus making very roomy quarters. 

 Each had large stores of sealed honey, 

 mostly in upper sections. The tempera- 

 ture was about 42^, without 2^ of varia- 

 tion. 



No. 2. — I next prepared 25 hives ex- 

 actly as in No. 1, except that the solid 

 hive covers were left on, and then four 

 strips of wood 1/25 of an inch thick 

 were used, one under each corner of the 

 cover, raising it slightly from the hive 

 top, and leaving a little ventilating 

 crevice on all sides of the top of the 

 hives. They were placed in the same 

 apartment of the cellar as No. 1. 



In the other apartment of the cellar 

 20 hives were placed with sealed covers 

 on, just as the bees had left them. The 

 covers were %-inch boards, and the 

 hives were full brood-chambers, hold- 

 ing 10 frames, 8x133^ inches, inside. 

 They were raised 2 inches from the bot- 

 tom-board, were good colonies with 

 plenty of honey, were put in at the same 

 time as the others, and kept at the 

 same temperature (42^) as the others. 



On April 6th, in an article for the 

 Revieio, I wrote this in regard to the 

 groups Nos. 1 and 2 : 



" These bees have remained quieter 

 the entire winter than any like quantity 

 I ever knew, and I examined them to- 

 day, and they are all alive, and abso- 

 lutely quiet. There is not a speck of 

 diarrhea on one of the white hives, and 

 there has been loss dead bees on the 

 cellar bottom than I have ever had from 

 a like number of cok)nies. These bees 

 are still in the cellar, and at present 

 it looks like a case of perfect wintering, 

 lint it does not prove that they might 



not have wintered equally well without 

 covers of any kind, and with less work 

 in preparing." 



At the time of writing the above, 

 there was a day or so of fine weather, 

 and I commenced to move my bees from 

 the cellar to the summer stands, but had 

 the good luck to only get out 10 colo- 

 nies the first afternoon ; the next morn- 

 ing the weather turned cold and stormy, 

 and continued so until April 20th, when 

 snow fell to the depth of 15 inches, and 

 from that day until May 8th there was 

 not a day in which I could safely put 

 out the bees. 



Let me here say that in my article of 

 April 6th I reported, in mentioning the 

 20 colonies with sealed covers, "They 

 have been more restless than those cov- 

 ered with porous covers, the hives are 

 damp and and unsatisfactory, and more 

 bees have flown to the cellar floor." 



Early in May I became alarmed for 

 the safety of my bees, the weather con- 

 tinued so cold that I dared not put them 

 out, and I found several dead, but they 

 continued very quiet, without the least 

 sign of diarrhea, and on May 6th I be- 

 gan to put them out. As those lots Nos. 

 1 and 2 were very quiet, I began in the 

 south half of my cellar in which the 20 

 colonies were. There were also some 

 50 colonies in this part in double hives, 

 of my old double brood-chamber style, 

 with combs only 43^ inches deep ; the 

 covers on these were raised slightly with 

 thin strips of wood like group No. 2. 

 We found these bees in good condition, 

 but about 10 per cent, were dead from 

 starvation. 



We next went to the hives with sealed 

 covers, and 19 out of the 20 were dead. 

 The hives contained stores in plenty, 

 but the hives and stores were soaked 

 with water, and combs nearly rotten 

 with mold — nearly the whole colony of 

 dead bees were on the bottom-boards, in 

 a stinking, disgusting mass. 



The weather continued fair, and on 

 May 8th we began to remove group No. 

 1 to the new house-apiary. These colo- 

 nies had about 5 per cent, loss by star- 

 vation, but the bulk of % them, seeing 

 they had been confined without a flight 

 for six months and four days, were all 

 that any one could wish ; the hives and 

 combs were dry and clean, many of the 

 bottom-boards were nearly as clean as in 

 summer, the bees were so bright and so 

 still that we carried all of the 24 colo- 

 nics that 1 pnt into the house-apiary 

 without closing the wide entrance in 

 either front or rear, and I believe with- 

 out a single bee taking wing, and some 



