304 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



We next come to view the second factor 

 in safe wintering: sufficient and wholesome 

 food. That bees need some food to stand 

 between tliem and starvation, experience 

 has too often proved. This fact will re- 

 ceive universal credence. But that the 

 stores are not always of a suitable character 

 though just as true, is not well understood. 



The autumn of 1871 — the year of Chicago's 

 great calamity — will ever be memorable 

 throughout our northern States for its un- 

 paralleled drouth. Every green thing, 

 flowers included, shriveled for want of 

 moisture. Thus bees were cut off from 

 their usual source of honey. During the 

 same autumn there were an unusual num- 

 ber of plant and bark lice. The willows, 

 the beeches, the tuli)) trees, in fact almost 

 every plant suitjiortt'd some species of these 

 families of vegetable parasites. The same 

 excessive drought that blasted the flowers 

 favored the development of these withering 

 insects. The bees ever eager for sweets, 

 not able to sip from the flowers, gathered 

 largely from these lice, which secreted a 

 sweetish substance from their bodies. Many 

 observed, and I among the rest, a large 

 amount of uncapped honey or stores as they 

 prepared their colonies for winter, and 

 wondered at so unusual an occurrence. 

 During the succeeding winter I experienced 

 my only other case of disaster in wintering. 

 To be sure the winter was cold, but my 

 bees were so protected that they felt it not. 

 My twelve colonies went into winter quar- 

 ters quite strong and in fine condition every 

 way, except that they were provisioned 

 with this uncapped honey, which I sup- 

 posed would be lully capped, as there was 

 yet abundance of time after I last looked at 

 them in the fall. In February I examined 

 my bees and to my great surprise, for this 

 was ray first misfortune with bees, I found 

 eight of the colonies dead. I was no less 

 surprised to find the lioney still uncapped. 

 Bees usually gather honey and leave it to 

 be capped when the condition becomes 

 such as to warrant it. This never reached 

 the condition of good honey. May this not 

 be why it never was capped? I tasted of 

 the honey and found it nauseating in the 

 extreme. I believe that this unsuitable 

 food killed my bees. What makes this 

 seem more probable is the fact that one of 

 the four remaining colonies, all of which 

 seemed equally diseased and feeble, from 

 which I took all the stores. n']ihu'iiig them 

 with good ca]>pt'(l honey, stored early the 

 previous season, eomnienVed at once to re- 

 vive, recovered entirely before spring, and 

 gave a net return of over seventy dollars 

 the succeeding season. The remaining 

 colonies, which were cleansed of dead bees, 

 permitted to fly, but which retained their 

 unwholesome stores, soon perished. The 

 following spring 1 examined several de- 

 funct apiaries in tliis vicinity, and in every 

 case found the same condition of ill-tasting 

 stores. Those who, like Mr. Davis, saw 

 that their bees Iiad only good cai)ped stores 

 and were well j)rotected did not sufl'er loss. 

 Hence I think 1 am safe in athrming that in 

 this region, one of the chief factors wliich 

 wrought the disease of that year was un- 

 suitable food. 



Our third truth tliat colonies should be 

 plenteous in young bees as winter draws 

 on, is so compatible with reason that it 

 seems hardly necessary to substantiate it 

 with experiments. In my own experience 



I have only negative evidence. I have al- 

 ways kept my bees breeding well into 

 autumn and have never suffered by spring 

 dwindling. Mr. Davis reduces the number 

 of his colonies each autumn by destroying 

 the old bees and uniting the young ones, till 

 each colony is strong, and has never suifer- 

 ed loss. A year ago 1 thought I would put 

 this matter to a test in a small way. In one 

 hive I permitted no brood to hatch after the 

 middle of August but kept the colony 

 strong in old bees. The colony was per- 

 mitted to fly once during the winter, seemed 

 in good condition, yet showed more dead 

 bees than any other colony. They lived till 

 spring when they died, young queen and 

 all, though the queen lived till after every 

 bee had shuffled off this mortal coil. I 

 hence affirm that whenever there is no fall 

 storing so that brood rearing stops in 

 August, whenever the queen becomes im- 

 potent so that she fails to deposit eggs to 

 any considerable number, or whenever the 

 autumn honey yield is so bountiful that the 

 queen has no opportunity to deposit, as has 

 been the case here the present autumn, then 

 the careless apiarist is ni innninent danger 

 of experiencing spring dwindling. 



All experience shows the importance of 

 absorbents above the bees, for wh^t observ- 

 ing apiarist has failed to notice the moisture 

 in his hives in winter which often induces 

 fungus growth, as seen in mouldy comb. 

 Or in cold winters has failed to note the 

 moisture changed to frost, which in severe 

 weather approximates too near the cluster, 

 often keeping them from the needed stores. 

 Of the evil effects of confined gases I know 

 nothing from my own experiments, and 

 know of only one "man who has experiment- 

 ed carefully in this direction — my friend 

 Mr. Townley, of Jackson Co., Michigan. 

 His experimenls as given to me confirm the 

 truth enunciated above. I presume in most 

 cases these gases find means of exit and are 

 harmless. 

 What are the requisites to safe wintering? 

 1st. — The colonies must be kept in a uni- 

 form temperature, which should never vary 

 beyond the niininuun temperature of 35 or 

 the maximum of 45 deg. This may be safe- 

 ly secured by placing them in a dry, dark, 

 well-ventilated cellar, which shall maintain 

 the required temperature. Or in a house 

 with double walls, enclosing a space wide 

 enough when filled in with sawdust to be 

 frost proof, even during the severest win- 

 ter, and so arranged as to be ventilated 

 without admitting the light. The same re- 

 sults nuxy be gained with the colonies on 

 their summer stands, if we but place boxes 

 or boards around and above the hives, leav- 

 ing a spare of a foot or nu re to be filled in 

 with sawdust, chaff, straw, or shavings, all 

 of which I have used with perfect success. 

 In this case it may be well to use a tube or 

 portico to the hive so that the bees may fly 

 out shoidd the weather be warm for so long 

 a time that the bees would become over- 

 heated a7id uneasy. The same object may 

 be gained by leaving the front of the hive, 

 which should face to the east, unprotected. 

 Could we be sure of sufficient snow so that 

 our bees could be covered deeply the winter 

 through, we could ask for notliing better. I 

 never had my bees do better tiian when thus 

 protected, during the disastrous winter of 

 '72-;5 when my bees, and those of a neighbor 

 which I arranged, were all thut survived in 

 the whole neighborhood. 



i 



