1911 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



ENGLISH METHODS OF WINTERING. 



Absorbent Coverings Preferred with a Dead-air 



Space Around the Side Walls Instead of 



Packing Material. 



BY D. M. MACDONALD. 



The subject is a complex one, yet I think 

 we have solved it in these islands in the 

 only possible way for us, and we will vote 

 almost unanimously in favor of absor- 

 bents. But then your State of Ohio cen- 

 ters on 40° north latitude, while we here 

 in Banff are about 57.5°! It is very 

 Interesting to add that the British Isles 

 stretch from 50° to 60° N. .Just fancy — a 

 fact not often realized — the south of Eng- 

 land is on the same parallel as Winnipeg 

 and the north of Ontario, Quebec, and New- 

 foundland, while our parallel runs through 

 the south of Greenland, the center of Hud- 

 son's Bay, and the very north point of Sas- 

 katchewan and Alberta. Judging by the 

 degrees north of the equator, we should 

 be almost in the arctic circle compared 

 with Medina. But from several interest- 

 ing causes which I need not dwell on we 

 really differ little in climatic conditions 

 from you. We would never dream in this 

 country of wintering in clamps or cellars, 

 and all our bees are wintered on their sum- 

 mer stands with very little packing in addi- 

 tion to that used in the heat of the season. 

 Our success, I think, depends a good deal 

 on two very important points, if not three. 

 Perhaps it might be considered presump- 

 tuous in me to assert that in these respects 

 we are ahead of you, so I will let the facts 

 speak for themselves. 



The main point, I think, to be attended 

 to in securing safe wintering is the top of 

 the brood-frames. There is the chief point 

 of weakness. Heat is generated by the bees 

 in the hive; and to give the colony the best 

 chance of living in comfort, and surviving 

 the rigors of our severest winters, we must 

 preserve the internal heat by every means in 

 our power. No draft may play through the 

 brood-nest escaping upward and conveying 

 the life-giving heat. We generate animal 

 heat in our own bodies unconsciously; but 

 to preserve it on nights of zero cold, we 

 must wrap up snugly beneath Marm woolly 

 blankets over linen sheets. Here is our 

 ideal for the bees. Cover the tops of frames 

 with a calico quilt, then over that place 

 from three to six layers of warm woollen 

 cloth, and you have just what the bees re- 

 quire to keep them in the best heart in an 

 arctic cold. Too heavy a pile of blankets 

 tends to make mankind uncomfortable; too 

 many heavy coverings incommode the bees, 

 and fail to secure the ends we are striving 

 for. The nearer you go to "hermetically " 

 sealing up the body under a press of heavy 



coverings, the nearer you get to defeating 

 the very end you are striving to attain. The 

 body becomes bathed in perspiration, and 

 discomfort follows. Bees breathe all over 

 the body, and if their primary and seconda- 

 ry organs can not get full play they are not 

 wintering under favorable circumstances. 



Now, here is just where the nature of the 

 roof of the British hives scores against those 

 generally used in America. I know your 

 chaff-hive roof has a clear space above the 

 packing; i. e., the roof does not press down 

 the planer shavings, forest leaves, or cut 

 straw generally used. But it lacks the 

 depth of our span roofs, and, moreover, in 

 general we are not content with even that 

 depth, but employ a lift of about six inch- 

 es. That affords a large space of nearly 

 dead air above the covering, affording am- 

 ple means of ventilation. Further, to aid 

 this essential to safe wintering, our hives 

 have auger-holes pierced in the gables, back 

 and front, to act as ventilators, and they 

 thus afford an opportunity for the vitiated 

 air to escape. These two points, the deep 

 space over the covering and the ventilating- 

 holes, covered, by the way, with perforated 

 zinc, or with cone escapes as a general rule, 

 mean more than at first sight might be 

 supposed. 



The ample covering over the frames pre- 

 serves the heat of the hive, yet it does not 

 prevent a gentle percolation of the heated 

 atmosphere through the porous coverings. 

 The vitiated air thus finds a way out over- 

 head, and fresh air is introduced in such 

 measure as the bees deem necessary. Their 

 keeper, of course, aids them by contracting 

 the entrance by means of slides in zero 

 weather, or by enlarging it when the tem- 

 perature is high. A fairly large actual en- 

 trance is provided on the approach of win- 

 ter; but it is contracted partially to prevent 

 snow drifting in and hinder the ingress of 

 vermin by perforated zinc being tacked on 

 above the slides, affording only about one 

 inch by Y?, in. as the space left open for the 

 bees' exit and entrance. The nature of our 

 packing overhead, and the ample "attic" 

 space, are the two points I specially speci- 

 fied at the start. The third is the open 

 space between the outer and inner bodies of 

 our hives. Take a W. B. C. as a typical 

 one. The wood employed might, perhaps, 

 be deemed too thin for our rigorous climate, 

 being only half-inch boards; but practice 

 proves theory wrong here, for even in our 

 northern latitude we are content with the 

 dead-air space between the outer and inner 

 body boxes, and never think of packing be- 

 tween the walls. Elaborate experiments 

 were formerly made to test this, and all 

 kinds of material used; but the end of it is 

 that now the dead-air space is deemed suf- 

 ficient. It must be granted that two half- 

 inch boards, with a space of two or three 

 inches between, will prove warmer, and in 

 several other respects more desirable than a 

 single board one inch thick. Yet another 

 point deserves notice. A deep bottom space 

 is favored by many on your side. Well, 



