38 



THE AMEBIC AX BEE-KEEPER. 



Mar 



empty for good results. If you have 

 not bees enough, simply stack three 

 or four up, making strong hives for 

 breeders. 



Success in wintering is also an im- 

 portant part of this plan, it gives, the 

 breeders the best of honey, which is 

 the principal of good wintering. 



The breeders should be not less 

 than eighteen inches high, by thirteen 

 inches square, aud should be winter- 

 ed on their summer stands. 



All the protection needed to winter 

 them with success, is to raise them 

 the last of October, and slip a honey 

 case, or box three or four inches high 

 under the hive leaving that much 

 between the combs and bottom board, 

 leave the entrance open as in sum- 

 mer, the hives when thus arranged 

 should not be more than eight or ten 

 inches from the ground. The hives 

 need no particular protection as the 

 hives are best with a current of air 

 all. around them, of course a sheltered 

 location for the apiary is best. Ven- 

 tilation at the top of the hive is very 

 essential, and this can be secured by 

 boring six or eight half- inch holes in 

 the cover and putting on a honey 

 case, with a cover laid over the case, 

 a fly hole about mid way of the hive 

 also helps to ventilate. Breeders thus 

 arranged, that, of course, have had no 

 honey taken from there, and con- 

 sequently are full of choice clover 

 honey will winter successfully, and 

 will be on time with a prime swarm 

 ready for business, while others are 

 tinkering up small colonies which 

 will only be ready when the harvest 

 is almost part. It may be said by 

 some that so much honey as the 

 breeders would contain would be too 

 much for the bee's share. An argu- 



ment more useless could not be made. 

 There is that scattereth and yet in- 

 creased). "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." 

 "Such measure as ye meet, shall be 

 measured to you again," and much 

 more could be cited to prove that 

 man's greed is his worst enemy. The 

 honey stored in the breeders belongs 

 to the bees, and by letting them have 

 it we increase our prospects greatly 

 for a large crop the following season, 

 If bee-keepers would rise above that 

 pernicious idea of hair splitting in re- 

 gard to amount of stores allowed for 

 bees, and follow some wholsome plan 

 such as I have tried to prescribe, 

 hundreds of large and profitable 

 colonies could be kept instead of the 

 poor, scanty and uncertain few, 

 honey would come into general use, 

 and no such idea as making bees play 

 second by trying to transform sugar 

 into honey would be even thought of, 

 while millions of pounds of choice 

 honey is going to waste. Supply 

 dealers would rejoice in such a 

 change, for if bee-keepers made their 

 own rough and ready hives and en- 

 larged their apiaries tenfold, the sup- 

 ply dealers would find their fields also 

 enlarged by the needs of the bee- 

 keepers in the sale of sections, 

 foundation, etc., much more than 

 would compensate for loss of the sale 

 of hives. We could buy the small 

 hives of dealers as usual if we wished 

 to do so. Such breeding hives as I have 

 discribed will stand the winter, and it 

 would almost seem the bees in them 

 could not be killed. I have had them 

 as high as twenty-eight inches, which 

 swarmed a mouth earlier than small 

 and tinkered up colonies, but I would 

 prefer them from eighteen to twenty- 

 four inches high. 

 Ovid, Pa. 



