376 THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



Wintering of Bees. 



A Part in the Cellar, and a Part in Packing Cases Out of Doors — 



a Comparison. 



LEON C. WHEELER. 



'"Jl 'VE been thinking about this wintering proposition. 'We have 

 Tl had a pretty bad winter and the bees I wintered out of doors 

 did not come out very well. Two or three colonies were 

 short of stores and I wouldn't blame any bee for dying when the 

 bee-keeper refused to leave her enough to eat. But a lot of mine 

 found dead this spring were well supplied with honey of good 

 quality, and moreover there was apparently no dysentery in the most 

 of them, and still they died. The only reason I can give to account 

 for it is that it was so cold, and for so long, that the bees starved 

 with plenty of honey in the hive, simply because they could not 

 move from one comb to the other because of the long continued cold 

 weather. Those which remain alive are not so strong as I could 

 wish, and as I lost about 50% of those I wintered out of doors here 

 in my home yard, I naturally don't feel very jubilant about it. I 

 haven't been to the out-yard yet since the weather was mild enough 

 to look them over very well, but don't think the loss will be quite 

 so heavy there. 



THOSE WINTEREI) IN THE CEIiIiAR ARE AI.I. aOOS STRONG COIiONIES, 

 WHIIiE THOSE WINTERED OUT OF BOORS ARE NOT VERV STRONG. 



But I tried twenty-four colonies in the cellar this winter, and 

 while I might have done a great deal better than I have with them, 

 still it has set me thinking. I saved eighteen of the twenty-four 

 colonies, and they are all good, strong colonies. Those wintered 

 out of doors are not very strong on an average. 



WINTER CASES ARE USED TO PROTECT CEIiIiAR WINTERED BEES 



DURING SPRING. 



I got a lot of extra outside winter cases and I set these colonies 

 into them without packing, except a cushion over the top as fast 

 as I set them out of the cellar, and I don't anticipate much trouble 

 with their spring dwindling. 



But now let me go back to last fall, when I put the bees in the 

 cellar. I wasn't very enthusiastic about it, for the only cellar avail- 

 able was a very damp one and was in use for the storing of vege- 

 tables and, as it turned out afterwards, a rather cold cellar at that. 

 But I partitioned ofif a place and set some potato crates on the 

 bottom of the cellar and made a platform of boards on these to set 



