132 



GI.EANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 15. 



portions. There were some good features 

 about them, especially in the matter of pre- 

 serving heat. I wintered many colonies in 

 them, or nuclei, if you prefer to call them so. 

 Four frames were on each side, sometimes 

 five. Of course, the division-board was made 

 bee-tight, so no bee could pass from one side 

 to the other. It is not an easy thing to winter 

 a colony having bees enough to cov^r only 

 two or three frames, but there's no trouble in 

 wintering a colon}- whose bees cover four, five, 

 or six frames. Well, don't you see that, if 

 you had a colony covering six frames, and in 

 the middle of wnnter you could, without dis- 



Goluen's original section-cleaning machine. 



turbing the bees, slip a thin board right down 

 through the middle of the cluster, that would 

 inake no appreciable difference as to the heat, 

 supposing the board was as warm as the clus- 

 ter, and the bees would go right on winter- 

 ing as if no change had been made. 



At any rate, I do not know that these nuclei 

 with enough bees on each side to cover two or 

 three combs wintered well ; and I wintered a 

 good many of them so for a nuinber of win- 

 ters. Whenever I looked at them in the win- 

 ter I found the bees all clustered together 

 against the division-board, just as though they 

 were one cluster. The thought may occur 



that the bees would not be able to move away 

 from the division -board to cluster on the out- 

 er combs when the honey from the center 

 combs was gone. I paid no especial attention 

 to this ; but I have no recollection of any 

 trouble from it. They were always wintered 

 in the cellar, and perhaps they always carried 

 the honey from the outer combs without mov- 

 ing the cluster. 



Now, friend Doolittle, I don't know that 

 this is even a "mite, "for I'm pretty sure 

 there's nothing new in it to you, and 3'et pos- 

 sibly you haven't given it the trial it deserves. 

 And I feel pretty sure there may be some of 

 the 3'ounger brethren in the ranks 

 who might do well to try some- 

 thing of the kind. You will read- 

 ily see that, by dividing a colony 

 in two parts, you can thus carry 

 through 100 extra queens if you 

 have 100 colonies. 



Possibly, however, you have 

 not thought this plan worth con- 

 sidering, because too much trouble 

 to divide the colony and then 

 unite again in spring. It might, 

 however, be a good thing in cases 

 where weak colonies are to be 

 united in the fall. As to uniting 

 in the spring, my greatest trouble 

 was that too often, in my earlier 

 experience, they united when I 

 didn't want them to. All that was 

 necessary was to have one side 

 queenless; and if there was a hole 

 under the division - board, just 

 large enough for one bee to crawl 

 through, there was no trouble 

 about their uniting peaceably and 

 promptly. 



I never tried it in any other way 

 than having the division-board in 

 the center ; but if I were anxious 

 to winter extra queens I'm not 

 sure but I would try having the 

 division-board to one side, so as to 

 winter a two-frame nucleus by the 

 side of a strong colony. I should 

 hardly expect it to work so well, 

 however, for the strong colony 

 might not continue all winter 

 against the division-board. I have 

 tried wintering six nuclei in one 

 hive, one frame to each nucleus, 

 but never succeeded. But they 

 were weak in bees, and it is pos- 

 sible the thing might succeed if 

 each nucleus were strong. 



As already mentioned, the greatest trouble 

 at first was to have the division -boards bee- 

 tight. I finally succeeded by using little tin 

 troug'.is. A piece of tin as long as the inside 

 length of the hive, and 1 '4 inches wide, was 

 bent in this shape: | | The bottom 



part was >4 inch i I wide. Then 



for each end of the ' ' hive was an- 

 other tin trough made the same way, only the 

 bottom of the trough was made just a little 

 more than Sg wide. The long trough was laid 

 in the bottom of the hive without fastening 

 (the hive had a tight bottom), then the end 



