592 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



October 1920 



This storm lasted a number of (lays, so I 

 went around- with the hammer and a spile 

 and drove holes thru the ice to give the 

 bees ventilation. However, the packed 

 bees were not affected by the sleet any 

 more than the unpacked ones, for the en- 

 trances to the hives were sealed up also. 

 No especial harm was done, altho I be- 

 lieve it caused the colonies to become ex- 

 cited, and a few started brood-rearing 

 prematurely; but, as it was in February, 

 they continued brood-rearing right thru 

 and no harm was done. 



Value of Packing in Spring. 

 But it is in the early spring that I be- 

 lieve the packing does the most good in 

 our locality. During the winter the tem- 

 perature within the cluster is 57 degrees, 

 while much of our weather is about 30 de- 

 grees. This leaves 27 degrees that the bees 

 must overcome. In the spring the temper- 

 ature within the cluster is 92 during brood- 

 rearing, while the outside temperature at 

 night is around 40 degrees, making 52 de- 

 grees that the bees must overcome as 

 against 27 degrees in the winter. From 

 this it will be seen that as far as the clus- 

 ter is concerned the weather in the spring 

 after brood-rearing has commenced is 25 

 degrees colder than it is in the winter. 

 Hence the importance of plenty of pro- 

 tection in early spring. Added to this, is 

 the fact that at that time the bees are 

 fewest in number, a large area of brood 

 must be kept warm, and on days when 

 weather permits a large percentage of bees 

 must be spared from the hive to gather 

 pollen, water and nectar, which facts make 

 the advantages of plenty of packing quite 

 obvious. Some times during a cold day in 

 early March Miien the wind was blowing 

 and flurries of snow were scooting around 

 among the winter cases, T would think the 



bees must be freezing; but when I ran my 

 hand down thru the dry sawdust and felt 

 of the top of the hive, how warm and com- 

 fortable it was! I have freqnently been 

 surprised at the large amount of capped 

 brood a hive contained in proportion to the 

 number of bees in the hive. Properly in- 

 sulated from the raw March weather, it is 

 apparent that the bees can take care of 

 twice the amount of brood that is possible 

 with no protection. 



Double Walled Hives. 

 Personally I have never used double- 

 walled hives, but those in the neighbor- 

 hood using them report that they winter 

 much better than the single-walled hives. 



Vincennes, Ind. Jay Smith. 



» * * 



Wintering in Mew York. 



Last winter and spring New York State 

 beekeepers suffered very unusual losses of 

 bees, due to various causes. In some cases 

 there was loss by starvation, owing to the 

 difficulty in obtaining sugar. Honey of 

 poor quality for winter food was another 

 cause of abnormally poor wintering, and 

 this was aggravated by the long continued 

 cold weather, making it impossible for bees 

 to get a cleansing flight. Many bees that 

 came thru the winter on inferior food were 

 so reduced in vitality that spring dwind- 

 ling resulted, and the spring loss seems to 

 have been greater than that prior to the 

 first of April. 



Many colonies that survived were in poor 

 condition, and numerous cases have come to 

 my notice where the loss reached 100 per 

 cent. There seems no doubt but that the 

 loss thru the State amounted to 50 per cent, 

 and more than that when the weakened 

 condition of the colonies that survived is 

 taken into account. 



Kenmoie, N. Y. O. Ij. Hershiser. 



FAR NORTH AND FAR SOUTH 



Manitoba and Texas are Far Apart, 

 but the Winter Problem is Very Seri- 

 ous in Both Climates 



By H. W. Sanders and H. B. Parks 



MANITOBA 

 enjoys (or 

 otherwise) 

 the severest 

 climate of any 

 civilized coun- 

 try, with the 

 exception of 

 central Siberia, 

 and indeed even 



central Siberia sometimes has to give 

 points to Manitoba. Before January last 

 winter we had nearly three months of 

 ^'freeze-up", with quite a good percentage 

 of below-zero .temperatures, and great 

 banks of snow six or eight feet high around 

 nur house after the middle of October. 



Since the first bees were brought here 

 from Ontario — not many years ago either — 

 the problem of wintering has caused more 

 failures, losses, and disappointments than 

 anything else, and is so bound up in every 



npiary with suc- 

 cess or failure 

 in honey-getting 

 that we cannot 

 emphasize too 

 often its im- 

 portance, or lay 

 too much stress 

 on having our 

 colonies s t r ong 

 in bees and stores in the spring, ready to 

 begin intensive brood-rearing during the 

 short weeks before the first flowers begin 

 to appear. 



House-cellars. 

 There are two classes of house-cellars, 

 those with furnaces in them, and those 

 without. The furnace-heated basements 

 are nearly all those of fully modern houses, 

 built of concrete or masonrj-, warm and 

 dry. The worst feature of them from the 

 beekeeper's point of view is that the bees 



