THE GENESEE FARMER. 



933 



WINTERING BEES. 



This is the most difficult of all bee-management; and 

 no rules can be laid down that will prove entirely suc- 

 cessful in all cases. I have tried the most of the systems 

 in practice, and will now briefly give my opinions, after 

 twenty years' trial. 



I object to wintering in cellars, for the reason that they 

 are too damp, and cause the combs to mold and the bees 

 to become unhealthy. 



Burying bees ia the ground is liable to the same ob- 

 jections. 



Placing the hives in a room of one's dwelling is dan- 

 gerous, if any light is admitted at the windows,, as the 

 bees, if not shut in, will leave their hives, fly to the light 

 and perish. If the passage-ways of the hives are closed, 

 they will, in mild weather, gather around the closed pas- 

 sages, and there die in large numbers in striving to 

 escape. 



Wintering in bee-houses made expressly for the pur- 

 pose, does very well, if the walls are so made as to pre- 

 vent the sudden changes of weather from cold to warm 

 from affecting the temperature of the atmosphere within 

 in a great degree. There is no danger from the cold, but 

 only from the mild and sometimes quite warm weather 

 of January, February and March. 



If such buildings are constructed of wood, there should 

 be a double wall, and filled in between with sawdust. If 

 made of brick, there ought to be an open space between 

 the two walls, and left open, by which means the tem- 

 perature of the interior is generally uniform. 



Bees, perhaps, winter as well in "clamps" as in any 

 other way, made as follows : First lay down two scant- 

 lings, 3 x 4 or less, parallel to each other, upon which 

 the hives are set, about December 1st, in a row, and as 

 close together as may be. The row of hives may be ex- 

 tended 10, 20 or 50 feet. On either side of the hives are 

 to be placed boards, cut to the right length, so as to form 

 a steep roof, and battened over the cracks so as to make 

 it water-tight. Now, against this roof, on both sides, the 

 earth is to be thrown up, so as to cover the boards about 

 a foot thick near the ground, and tapering off to about 

 six inches at or near the ridge. A couple of narrow 

 boards may be nailed together at the edges, to form a 

 cap, and thus prevent any rain from leaking in at the 

 ridge. The ends are to be closed on the same principle, 

 as far as practicable, so that there shall be no light en- 

 tering the clamp. At each end, near the ground, an 

 opening must be made large enough to admit a steam- 

 pipe, or wooden box five or six inches square, open at 

 both ends, to admit a current of air to pass through the 

 clamp, which is very essential to keep the bees healthy. 

 Over the ends of these pipes or boxes should be placed 

 wire-cloth, to prevent rats and mice from entering and 

 destroying the honey and bees. It will be necessary to 

 see that the flow of air through these passages is not ob- 

 structed by snow during the winter; and they should be 

 so arranged as to admit little or no light to the bees. 



I have generally adopted a somewhat different system, 

 though about the same in principle, which I fully ex- 

 plained in the Farmer last season ; yet I do not think it 

 any better than the "clamp" plan, but merely requires 

 a little less labor. 



Some people excavate the ground a foot or more, where 

 it is dry, and thus have less earth to dig from the sides. 

 I recommend that plan, when there is no danger of water 

 standing in the excavations. 



Clinton, N. 1. T. B. MINER. 



ROADS TIP AND DOWN HILL. 



When the roads of a large part of the newer 

 portions of the Northern States were laid out, the 

 surveyors aimed strenuously to have them in a 

 vertical plane, instead of a horizontal one — that is, 

 straight, without deviating to the right or left, at 

 the expense of climbing up and down hills in- 

 definitely. We could point out many instances in 

 proof of this peculiar kind of wisdom, — where the 

 road would be little or no longer, if it had bent to 

 the right or left, to avoid a hill — on the same prin- 

 ciple that the bail of a kettle is of no greater length 

 when lying down horizontally than when standing 

 erect. On a good hard earth road, a team will 

 draw twenty-five times as much as it could lift 

 vertically; and on a smooth, hard, broken-stone 

 road, fifty or sixty times as much ; but as soon as 

 the horizontal is changed to a steep ascent, the 

 force required to draw the load becomes enor- 

 mously increased. We have seen hills fifty to a 

 hundred feet high, that might have been as well 

 avoided as not, had it not been for the fact, that 

 some neighboring farmer did not want the boundary 

 of his cornfield made crooked ; and so, the road 

 commissioner, for fear of losing his vote, ordered 

 a hundred other farmers to ascend that hill, each 

 one hundred times a year; requiring an amount of 

 strength, annually, enough to raise ten thousand 

 tons one hundred feet Mgk, if each team drew a ton 

 load — more than enough for all the increased ex- 

 pense of making the road on a level piece of ground. 

 Some of our readers may remember the turnpike 

 road west from Boston, built on the erroneous 

 supposition that a road may be effectively shorter 

 by passing straight on, so far as deviating to the 

 right or left is concerned, but continually up and 

 down hill. Nobody would travel this costly road 

 — it was too hard for horses — and the vast expen- 

 diture for forty costly miles was entirely thrown 

 away, and individuals ruined. Sometimes cattle 

 know more than men — we lately witnessed a clear 

 example to prove it. The owner of a snug little 

 farm constructed a smooth hard farm road from 

 his barn to the pasture, rising in one place in an 

 ascent of several feet, and descending again accord- 

 ingly. But the cows would not walk up the 

 smooth road over the knoll, but preferred making 

 a patli for themselves on a level, on the inclined, 

 side of the knoll — preferring the rough but level 

 path, to "boosting" their eight hundred pound 

 carcasses up the hill and down. When will some 

 road commissioners learn to be as wise ? — Country 

 Gentleman. 



How to Harvest Carrots. — Send a man with 

 a sharp hoe through the rows, to cut off the L ops. 

 Then, beginning on one side of the patch with a 

 plow, cut a deep furrow close to the first row of 

 carrots; a second furrow will completely unearth 

 them. Two boys with baskets will soon fill a 

 wagon. When the crop is harvested, the land will 

 be already fall-plowed. 



