n 1. K A N I N (! S IN P. K E (' I' f, '1' C K K 



XOVK.MBKR, 1920 



While his hearers liavo believed this, they 

 have not practiced it. The main reason for the 

 failure, as he said, was poor wintering; and 

 poor wintering was due to a lack of stores 

 and insufficient protection in the first place. 



Personally, George Deniuth is one of the 

 most likable of" men. Out of a wajni heart 

 and even tenijier sjjring gentleness, kin<lness 

 and charitableness for all men and all views. 



As I have already stated, I shall continue 

 to gather data from all over the United 

 States and send them in to Mr. Demuth. I 

 shall do the field work, writing feature ar- 

 ticles and some editorials; but the responsi- 

 bility of making a good journal will rest on 

 the shoulders of Mr. Demuth. I shall like- 

 wise throw material into the hopper, includ- 

 ing the best photographs that I can pro- 

 duce; but Mr. Demuth will make the selec- 

 tion. Miss Fowls will continue as assistant 

 to him, and H. G. Rowe will be managing 

 editor as before. E. R. ROOT. 



a= 



OUR SOUTHERN beekeepers, or at least 

 those in the tropics and semi-tropics, used 

 to s a y they were 

 The Wintering not interested i n 

 Problem North t h e discussion o f 

 and South. how to winter 



bees, a s they had 

 no winter problem. But many of them 

 have since learned to their sorrow — espe- 

 cially those who have gone from the North 

 to the South — that bringing bees from a 

 late fall into early spring is often a more 

 serious matter in the Southland than here 

 in the North. It does not need protracted 

 periods of zero cold to kill bees. In fact, 

 cold will not kill them when conditions are 

 right. The serious mistake made by many 

 of the southern beekeepers is in not hav- 

 ing sufficient stores. A colony in the South 

 requires two or three times as much honey 

 as one in the North; and unless it is well 

 supplied brood - rearing will be held in 

 check, with the result that there will be a 

 weak colony entirely unfitted to gather the 

 first flow of honey. A colony that is not 

 strong by the time of the first flow, so far 

 as the honey crop is concerned, might just 

 as well be dead, and that same principle ap- 

 plies either north or south. 



Thruout some of the southern States and 

 in California the editor has run across hun- 

 dreds and hundreds of weak colonies. 

 When the fact was brought to the atten- 

 tion of their owners they often said they 

 did not know why their colonies were weak. 

 An examination of the combs in practically 

 every case showed that the bees must have 

 fallen short of stores in the fall. Twenty- 

 five pounds of stores in a climate where 

 the snow seldom or never falls is alto- 

 gether inadequate to carry a colony thru 

 until the next honey flow, which may be 

 in February or March. 



Some southern beekeepers are making the 

 mistake of saying that 25 -pounds of stores 

 will be enough because ''the bees will be 



gathering something all winter." But too 

 often this expected "something" does not 

 materialize, on account of a peculiar win- 

 ter — a winter that is not so uncommon as 

 it might be. It is far better to have 50 

 or even 75 pounds of stores in reserve. If 

 the bees gather something during the win- 

 ter, well and good; and should there be a 

 surplus of stores in the spring after new 

 honey comes in, the old stores can be ex- 

 tracted. 



It is always a mistake to draw too heav- 

 ily on a colony's reserved supply for win- 

 ter, either north or south. M. H. Mendle- 

 son, Ventura, Calif., one of the oldest bee- 

 keepers in that State, has repeatedly made 

 the statement that if the beekeepers would 

 allow their colonies to have more stores in 

 the fall they would not only avoid starva- 

 tion but would have strong colonies for 

 the orange, which comes early. From in- 

 formation which the- editor gathered in Cali- 

 fornia, not half of the colonies in that State 

 are strong enough to be of any use in the 

 orange flow that is often heavy. The same 

 general mistake is made in the Carolinas 

 and Georgia, as well as in Florida, Ala- 

 bama, and Texas — that is to say, the lack 

 of stores during the previous fall has re- 

 sulted in weak colonies the following spring 

 — -colonies that are practically useless when 

 the flow comes on. 



The new editor-in-charge of Gleanings was 

 one of the first, if not the first, to discover 

 this great defect in semi-tropical wintering. 

 Before he takes formal charge — that is, be- 

 fore he arrives in Medina — we feel that this 

 statement should be made. 



So far we have touched directly only on 

 the southern problem. Much that we have 

 said thus far would apply to the northern 

 beekeeper — the one whose bees are or ought 

 to be, at least, in packing - cases, double 

 walled hives, or good cellars. The bees in 

 the colder climates are not threatened with 

 starvation to anything like the degree that 

 the bees in the South are; but unless the 

 colonies are well supplied with stores — pre- 

 ferably natural stores — well housed, their 

 chances of securing a crop the following 

 season are very much less. 



The matter of how to pack the bees or 

 how to construct the cellars has already 

 been covered in these columns. If, then, 

 the bees are well supplied with stores, and 

 are well housed, the northern beekeeper, 

 so far as his bees are concerned, can fold 

 his hands and take life a little easier; but, 

 so far as his business is concerned, he will 

 not fold his hands. He will get readj- for 

 the next season, and that is no small job. 

 He will clean up his supers, sort over his 

 combs, nail up his frames and hives, and 

 put in his foundation. He will select his 

 locations for outyards, having always in 

 * mind accessibility. If he is any kind of 

 salesman he will sell his honey locally; and 

 if tlieie e\'er was a winter when this should 

 he ihuii' it is the one before us. 



