770 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



October, 1917 



FROM THE FIELD OF EXPERIENCE 



ings, a. tight fence or wall, shrubbery, such 

 as evergi'eens, or a hill or bank of earth. 

 Cold winds are more harmful to bees than 

 much colder still air; and colonies in the 

 open, or in exposed positions^, will suffer 

 even with heavy packing. 



Winter cavses, chaff, or sawdust packing, 

 tar-paper, etc., may help to some extent in 

 the conservation of stores; but I am con- 

 vinced that in this climate, with our open 

 winters, where the bees can have a flight 

 nearly every week, extensive and expensive 

 packing will not pay in dollars and cents, 

 and that is what counts with the honey- 

 producer. With our long breeding season 

 we can get the bees built up to rousing 

 colonies in time for the surplus flow ; and 

 if they reach that stage too early they are 

 likely to swarm. And for storing I had 

 rather have a moderate-sized colony that 

 has no inclination to swarm than a very 

 large one that persists in going on a 

 picnic in the middle of the honey-flow.- 



Statistics show the winter loss of bees 

 to be very high in the South; but when we 

 take into consideration the gTeat number 

 of careless or ignorant beekeepers, and their 

 slipshod " let-alone " methods, we can see 

 at once that it is due to starvation and 

 neglect rather than to cold weather that 

 the death-rate is high. Strictly speaking, 

 these should not be counted as " winter 

 loss " at all, since a targe number of 

 colonies swarm themselves to death, or 

 starve out in the late summer or fall. 

 Among the well-informed and careful bee- 

 keepers of the southern states the winter 

 loss of bees will be found to be very low, 

 perhaps one or two per cent being a fair 

 average. 



After all, the real " iDroblem " is liow to 

 reach the class who will not read, or who, 

 if they read, Avill not profit. 



Franklin, Tenn. J. M. Buchanan. 



Outwitting the Mice 



Tn spite of the fact that people have 

 solemnly assured me every animal was 

 created for some purpose, I have never yet 

 heard any logical reason for the creation 

 of mice — particularly the mice which do 

 so much damage in the hives. Each fall, 

 as soon as the farmers start to take the fod- 

 der from the cornfields, the trouble begins. 

 Every mouse in the fields seems to think 

 liis chief duty in life is to make his home 

 in one of the neai'est hives. These mice 

 are field mice or, as some people call Ihem. 



woods mice. To be sure, ordinary house 

 mice will destroy colonies or empty combs 

 kept in cellars of buildings; but out of 

 doors it is the field mice which play havoc 

 with the bees. 



Two other important features about them 

 are their strength and their almost human 

 ingenuity in outwitting people who try to 

 keep them out of beehives. I have re- 

 peatedly shoved entrance-blocks in place 

 only to find, the following morning, that 

 one end of the blocks was again pulled out 

 about an inch. As the only kind of animal 

 to which that size of space would be of 

 value is mice, they must have worked at 

 the blocks until they had them out. 



These field mice, if they have the least 

 opportunity, will make their nests in the 

 hives. The nests, made of twigs, straw, 

 (n* any other available material, are round 

 liollow balls almost twice as large as a base 

 ball. There are always two entrances op- 

 posite each other in the upper part of 

 them. They are built where the comb is 

 eaten away. If mice once get into a hive 

 the colony is practically doomed. If the 

 colony is not killed outright, there will be 

 so few bees left that the beekeeper would 

 be wasting his time to build it up again. 



There is one convenient way of keeping- 

 these mice out of hives. It is by holding" 

 the wire entrance-guard securely in place 

 with a couple of small wooden buttons fas- 

 tened on the front of tlie hive. As short 

 screws are used for fastening on the but- 

 tons, three or four turns of a screwdriver 



will put them on or take them off. They 

 can easily be taken off in the si3ring out 

 of the way during the busy season and put 

 (in again in the fall. With these entrance- 

 guards, if the beekeeper wishes to remove 

 the dead bees from the bottom-board dur- 

 ing a long cold spell he can, by shoving 

 aside the buttons, take off the wire without 

 <listnrbing the colony in the least. There 

 is never any jolting or pounding. 



Northeast. Md. Ruth C. Giiford. 



