1921 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



489 



of cloth, such as sacks, carpets and 

 old coats, directly over the colony 

 and then cover with a pack of saw- 

 dust or leaves. They came very near 

 convincing me that bees could not 

 winter in northern Wisconsin with 

 the covers sealed on. Shortly after 

 my visit to the yard, I had an occa- 

 .sion to see some of the bees in my 

 Shawano County yard, and having 



inches on top. Mr. Gentz is a mem- 

 ber of the group of "upward ventila- 

 tors." He is in a section which pro- 

 duces very fine crops of honey from 

 wild raspberries and fireweed, as well 

 as occasional crops from clover and 

 basswood. He claims that experience 

 demonstrates that bees wintered out 

 of doors build up faster in the spring. 

 This, no doubt, is accounted for by 



Fig. 4. — The Eskil packing case 



like Mr. Bishop, as it was with Mr. 

 Schmidt, who worked out the system 

 many yeai-s ago. These fellows laugh 

 at the arguments put up by the "up- 

 ward ventilators." 



Fig. 3. — Mr. Kreiger's yard at Rio, 

 Kewaunee County. 



Mr. Kreiger keeps bees very suc- 

 cessfully "the good old-fashioned 

 way." As shown in the picture, he 

 uses the straw skep. He claims that 

 the bees winter better in these than 

 in modern hives, and he proves it by 

 his experience. During the winter 

 the bees are stored in a small house, 

 the walls of which contain about 6 

 inches of packing. Mr. Kreiger had 

 a number of prime swarms in May. 

 It is indeed interesting to find a bee- 



Fig. 



-Forest County yard in winter cases 



found them very contented and dry 

 in spite of the sealed covers, I de- 

 cided to investigate further. 



Fig. 5. — A corner of the yard of 



the protection which the packed colo- 

 nies have during the spring. 



Fig. 6. — D. A. Blanchard's yard at 

 Antigo, Langlade County, Wis. 



Here the colonies are placed side 

 by side, each alternate pair facing op- 

 posite directions. The covers are left 

 sealed on. The packing is planer 

 shavings and 6 inches underneath, 

 on the ends and top, all enclosed in 

 roofing paper. An examination in 

 March revealed that these bees had 

 wintered in very fine condition. There 

 was no moisture present, nor any 

 other indications of poor winter con- 

 ditions. 



Fig. 7. — At Laona, Forest County, 

 Wis., I found Mr. G. J. Guenther win- 

 tering bees very successfully in a 

 large, well-lighted cellar, one part of 

 which was used for a work shop. The 

 picture shows a large box in which 8 

 colonies are wintering. They are kept 



Fig. G. — D. A. Blanchard's yard in Langlade County 



keeper who is making some success 

 in keeping bees as they were kept 

 hundreds of years ago. 



Fig. 4. — The Eskils, of Iron Moun- 

 tain, Michigan, wintering successfully 

 out of doors. 



The above packing case has been 

 the abode of a thriving colony for the 

 last eight winters. These people are 

 among a large group who advocate 

 "upward ventilation." They remove 

 all covers, place several thicknesses 



Julius Gentz, Wabeno, Forest County, 

 Wis. 



Mr. Gentz has made beekeeping his 

 chief occupation for many years. He 

 had 260 colonies this season. He 

 winters some of them in cellars. For 

 many years he has wintered 60 colo- 

 nies in packing cases as shown above. 

 He uses quadruple cases with no 

 packing underneath the hives, except 

 tar paper and only 3 or 4 inches of 

 leaves around the hives and 6 or 8 



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