OCTOBER 1, 1914 



CCDNVEESATIONS WITH DOOLITTLE 



Alt Borodino, New York. 



" A recent writer recommends allowing 

 bees as little as from six to ten pounds of 

 stores for winter. Another writer, in a 

 different agricultural paper, gave fifty 

 pounds as tlie required amount. This is 

 very confusing, especially to the beginner. 

 How much food does each colony of bees 

 require in order to winter successfully'? 



Well, these things are often very con- 

 fusing to the beginner, and I do not wonder 

 at it. However, as a rule the writer of an 

 article in any of our periodicals cannot go 

 into all of the minutiae connected with the 

 subject written upon, because it would make 

 too long an article. That none need be thus 

 confused, my advice to all beginners is to 

 purchase one or more of our valuable books 

 on bee culture; in these they will find most 

 if not all they want to know. 



While I do not think that fifty pounds of 

 honey should be required to winter a colony 

 of bees under any condition, yet the amount 

 required depends very largely on the loca- 

 tion, whether the bees are wintered in the 

 cellar or on the cummer stand and upon 

 what is meant by "winter." It should be 

 plain to all that more stores are required 

 where the winter lasts from October 20 to 

 the middle of April, as it docs sometimes 

 here in our northern localities, than in a 

 latitude like that of southern Ohio, or in 

 some sheltered nook where the mercury 

 rarely if ever touches the zero mark. I 

 presume that the writer who gave from sis 

 to ten pounds of honey as a right amount 

 for stores had in mind the "fuel" required 

 to keep the colony warm but not to supply 

 them food for brood-rearing in the spring. 

 He probably argued that this scanty .supply 

 of food tends to make the bees retrench, so 

 that they use this supply only as fuel, and 

 thus early brood-rearing, which is sup^Dosed 

 by many to be of no advantage in cellar 

 wintering, is done away with. According to 

 his theory he winters the bees at little cost, 

 and at the same time places them in a condi- 

 tion which is most conducive to their pros- 

 perity, where spring bloom furnishes a sup- 

 ply of nectar as soon as the colonies are 

 placed on their summer stands. I cannot 

 think that any writer would give so little an 

 amount in the fall as sufficient to last the 

 bees till honey comes from the fruit bloom 

 the latter part of May. Most of those who 

 advocate a small amount of stores provide 

 themselves with a supply of frames full of 

 sealed honey, reserved to fall back upon 

 wlien the .sui3ply given in the fall is about to 

 become exhausted. 



The one thing which I see against this 

 short-store plan as given by its advocates is 

 that, in our locality, the bees might run 

 out of stores at a time when it would be 

 imioossible to supply their wants on ac- 

 count of protracted cold after the bees are 

 out of the cellar for the season, thus in- 

 creasing the probability of loss. I well re- 

 member when I once lost two good colonies 

 by starvation during a cold two weeks the 

 fore part of May. 



Years ago, when I first began to keep 

 bees, I thought that each colony wintered 

 on the summer f='tand should have at least 

 30 pounds of honey to carry them to the 

 first of May; but after repeated trials I 

 am fully satisfied that 25 pounds is just as 

 good as 30; and I find that not one colony 

 in 25 will consume 20 pounds during this 

 time. The only reason for giving the 25 

 pounds instead oE the 20 lies in the simple 

 fact that the bees Avill retrench when their 

 stores are getting low ; and if this retrench- 

 ing comes when the bees ought to be rearing 

 brood, then we are losing largely by not 

 having honey enough in the hive to keep 

 brood-rearing going as it should. I think it 

 is well in this locality if all colonies on the 

 summer stands should have at least ten 

 pounds of honey in their hives the middle of 

 April, to give the bees the confidence they 

 need to start out right for the season; for 

 with this amount of stores they will not feel 

 the need of retrenching unless the season is 

 one of unprecedented cold, but will push 

 brood-rearing rapidly. If they can be Avin- 

 tered on 6 pounds up to this time, so much 

 the better; but if at this time they do not 

 have plenty of honey it should be supplied 

 to them in some shape. 



For cellar wintering I allow 5 pounds less 

 honey than for outdoor wintering, finding 

 that, as a rule, less than 2 pounds of stores 

 per month is the average amount consumed 

 by the bees while in the cellar. Then a good 

 deal depends on the strength of the colo- 

 nies. A very late swarm with only a quart 

 or two of bees will not consume as much 

 stores as will a powerful colony with four 

 times as many bees, although the consump- 

 tion of the smaller colonies will be greater 

 in proportion to their numbers. I have 

 carried through small colonies, or what 

 would be more properly termed nuclei, 

 from October to May on 5 pounds of honey, 

 but these reared very little brood. The 

 amount of brood reared has very much to 

 do with the consumption of stores, 



