OCTOBKR, 1917 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



761 



FROM THE^FIELD OF EXPERIEfeE'^'" 



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IS 



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Wintering Problem in North Carolina 



Ten years' experience witli bees, starting 

 with 25 colonies and increasing to 100, and 

 then after a few years' work with this last 

 number an increase to 500, gives us some 

 experience in the business along many lines. 

 We have been interested in the wintering 

 problem all along, and have tried several 

 ]ilans in a small way. For several winters 

 we removed four combs from the brood-nest 

 and put in division-boards and packed the 

 empty space on the sides with chaff. We 

 have packed them by putting a super over 

 the colony and filling the super with chaff, 

 of course having a cloth over the bottom of 

 the super. We have wrapped the colonies 

 in tar paper. But in all these experiments 

 we have never been able to see just whether 

 or not it helped the colony to come out 

 strong in the spring. 



We are thoroly convinced that all this 

 packing that we have been doing is not go- 

 ing quite far enough; on the same princi- 

 ple that a thin coat might help to keep a 

 man warm in the winter, but an overcoat 

 would be so much the better. 



It must not be forgotten that we are be- 

 low the 36th degree of latitude, and that 

 the temperature is not often below 20. 

 Once in a dozen years it gets down to zero 

 for a day or two. It is not often that bees 

 are confined here for more than three weeks 

 between flights. 



As we see it, the most important part of 

 wintering a colony of bees is to see that 

 the queen raises a batch of late brood. 

 With us the queen will often stop laying 

 in the fall, and the colony go into winter 

 with all old bees, or with bees that have 

 seen some field service. We think if a 

 colony is given a good feed, say a gallon 

 of syrup in September, and the queen thus 

 induced to lay, we get bees for winter that 

 see practically no service in the fall. We 

 think that, with a strong force of young 

 b;es like these, a colony will winter with 

 plenty of feed under almost any conditions 

 in this climate. 



Our experience is that but few are get- 

 ling half the returns from their bees that 

 they should have, and that better hive- 

 bodies and better winter protection will pay 

 handsomely for all the expense involved. 



Our bees are all in tight boxes, well 

 painted, with no cracks or wind-holes. We 

 have generally contracted the entrance in 



the fall by a liberal use of mud, closing the 

 entrance to three inches by % inch. One 

 of these days, when we can spare the 

 money and the time, we are going to buy 

 winter cases for all our colonies, even if it 

 does cost. We confidently expect that it 

 would pay us handsomely to go the limit in 

 this better protection. 



J. E. Johnson. 

 Mount Airy, N. C, Sept. 5. 



The Bee Business in Manitoba 



[The article printed below has been sent to us 

 by a business firm in Winnipeg, Canada, wliich 

 frankly admits that it has self-interested motives 

 in advertising the bee possibilities of Manitoba, but 

 adds: "This (bee) article has been handed us by 

 a salaried official of the Government, and we hand 

 it to you to deal with on its merits. It is abso- 

 lutely reliable, for it has been prepared by one who 

 has access to full information on this subject." 

 "With this explanation of its origin, we print the 

 article below, and shall be glad to receive confirma- 

 tion of its truth from some of our Manitoba friends. 

 — Editor.] 



Can bees be successfully wintered out 

 of doors in a cold climate? From all ac- 

 counts that question is to be answered once 

 and for all in the Province of Manitoba, 

 which has a reputation greater, perhaps, 

 than it deserves, for its No. 1 hard weather 

 in winter. Farmers in Manitoba have gone 

 into beekeeping extensively in the past few 

 5'ears and have found it at once the least 

 troublesome and by long odds the most 

 profitable of all " side lines " on the farm. 

 That they have found it profitable is prov- 

 ed by the fact that where 100,000 pounds 

 v.'ould be an outside estimate of the honey 

 produced in Manitoba five- years ago, offi- 

 cial statistics show a honey crop of over 

 800,000 pounds in 1916. 



Two years ago exjjeriments w-ere carried 

 on on a small scale in outdoor wintering. 

 Last 3'ear these experiments were multiplied 

 with almost complete success. This winter 

 they will be tried on a larger scale than 

 ever; and if the same success attends the 

 Avork this winter as was evident before, the 

 question will be considered settled. At- 

 tempts at outdoor wintering were induced 

 by the troubles found everywhere in cellar 

 wintering, where dampness and varying 

 temperature often play havoc witli the 

 hives. The method tried in Manitoba was 

 to put large numbers of hives in big pack- 

 ing-cases, with a one-foot filling of oat chaff 

 or sawdust between the stacked hives and 

 walls of the packing case, leaving only a 



