SEPTEMBER 1, 1914 



683 



I liave described, and force them to use up 

 ll;<>ii- \itality so tliey will die by November 

 J, and not go into the winter cluster, as they 

 form nine-tenths of the bees that straggle 

 out on the combs to freeze and winter-kill. 

 They are always restless and looking for 

 trouble. I further find that brood-rearing 

 exhausts these bees faster at this time than 

 the transfer of stores; and the feeding at 

 this time will always lead to the rearing of 

 brood sufficient to winter in the best of 

 condition for spring work, and we have 

 used the profitless bee to the best advantage, 

 for we have made them fill the home with 

 stores prepared for winter, raise a new 



geiK'ial ioii to meet the rigors of the coming 

 spiiiig work in the prime of life, otherwise 

 they would be useless consumers of stores, 

 to die just when most needed. We find bees 

 that use the syrup take fewer cleansing 

 Hights to maintain their health than when 

 they use natural stores. 



Since reading Mr. Hand's article we have 

 induced a colony of golden Italians to store 

 20 pounds of sugar in seven days during 

 weather so wet they could not fly, and that 

 without the loss of a dozen bees; and we 

 are going to watch the effect, though we are 

 not worrying about their dying. 



Grant's Pass, Ore., Dec. 26, 1913. 



WINTERING 



BY MAJOR SHALLARD 



1 had occasion in October, 1913, to visit 

 some of my out-apiaries to examine the 

 colonies and see how they had come through 

 the winter. I never before saw such a strik- 

 ing instance of the value of packing bees 

 down warm for the winter. It is, of course, 

 customary for the apiarists of the Northern 

 States to give all sorts of protection for 

 winter; but it is not in Australia, and I 

 think I could safely say that most of the 

 bees are left on the winter stands in much 

 the same state they were in all through the 

 season. The locality where these fai'ms are 

 is the western district of New South Wales. 

 The temperature falls to the freezing-point, 

 and sometimes below, and there are occa- 

 sional falls of snow ; but some winters there 

 is none at all. The cold wind (that is, the 

 damaging winter winds) come from the 

 west. I am mentioning these details to 

 explain what winter conditions and draw- 

 backs the bees had to combat. All the bees 

 in this district had suffered during the 

 previous season from a pretty severe attack 

 of " nosema apis," or, as it is generally 

 known, " bee paralysis," and they had gone 

 into, winter quarters weak, although some 

 apiaries were stronger' than others. 



The first two apiaries visited were two 

 miles apart, and consisted of thirty or forty 

 hives respectively. These had gone into 

 winter quarters weak, having about two 

 frames of brood, and were short of stores. 

 They were fed half a ton of honey, which 

 was only about half what they should have 

 had ; but it was decided to chance it. They 

 were packed, but only on the top, with two 

 thicknesses of corn-sack, thirty thicknesses 

 of newspaper, a sheet of tin, a flat board 



top, one inch tliick, and a stone on top to 

 keep all in position. 



The thirty-hive lot opened up in fine 

 condition with the exception of one hive 

 which had a queen and only about fifty bees 

 left. The rest would average about three 

 frames of brood; and, although they had 

 eaten all of their winter stores, they all had 

 plenty of new honey in the combs, and some 

 of them were just beginning to cap a little 

 of it. It was very pleasing to have them 

 open up in so much better order than was 

 expected. 



A visit was next paid to the forty-hive lot. 

 These, although packed just the same as the 

 others, were in nothing like such good order. 

 They were breeding well, although not so 

 forward as the first lot, but they were liter- 

 ally living from liand to month, having 

 hardly an ounce of surplus honey in any of 

 the hives. 



I commenced to look around for the cause 

 of this, and concluded it was because they 

 were in a position where they got a lot of 

 strong winds from which they had no pro- 

 tection. They are being moved to a more 

 sheltered ])osition, and, no doubt, will do 

 better. 



Some eight miles away was another apiary 

 of eighty hives. These had been in such 

 good condition thaf they were left with the 

 top boxes on, and not packed at all. They 

 had plenty of honey on going into winter 

 quarters, and a fair amount of brood and 

 bees. They were opened up through the 

 winter, and found to be out of stores, and 

 they were fed forty tins of honey. On being 

 opened in the spring they were found to be 

 in very bad ordei-. The first four opened 



