DEVOTED TO BEES A:VI> II03VEY, A>'D iI<»rJ2 IINTEIIESTS- 



Yol. IX. 



3IAY 1, 1881. 



No. 



o. 



1 



Published Monthly. 



A. Z. ROOT, 



Publisher and Projmetor, \ 



- Medina, o. J EstciUisliecl in 1873. \^£^'£M^''^^''^^^'^^^^^ 



fTKRMS: Si. 00 Per AKNUM. is AtivaxcE: 

 I 2 ( 'oiiks for Si. 90: S for §2.75; 5 for Sl.OO: 10 

 I or iiioic, 75 c-ts. each. Sinprle Xnmbtr, 10 cts. 

 { Aililitioiis to clubs may be made at club 

 Above art' all to hv sent to OXE Posi- 



IVOTES FROM THE BANTVER APIARY. 



No. 18. 



MY "revised" report FOR 18S0; HOW THE COLD 

 WEATHER SHRANK THE " FIGGERS." 



^^S/f-Y. haA'c been having a " spell " of cold weath- 

 er, for this time of the year, but this 7th 

 day of April it is warm enoujrh for rae to 

 sit out in the sunshine, upon the wheelbarrow, and 

 compose this article, scribbling it down in phono- 

 graphy upon a scrap of paper, while I keep an eye 

 on the " twins," and see that they don't run into 

 the mud. 



I suppose, by good rights, that the Banner Apiary 

 ought to be draped iu mourning, the flags hung at 

 half mast, and its owner consigned to "Blasted 

 Hopes;" but as it is, there are three colonies (1 had 

 eleven last fall) holding the fort (yes, and two of 

 these were bought this spring cf a neighb<ir wh(jse 

 apiary I Italianized two years ago) while their owner 

 is "poking" about the country, bujing bees of his 

 more fortunate neighbors, and empty combs of his 

 less fortunate ueighbcrs. (It's an "awful" goed 

 spring to buy empty combs.) 



How did I lose my bees";' Well, I'll tell you the 

 best I know how. In the first place, I " felt it in my 

 bones " that we were going to have a hard winter on 

 bees, so 1 sold 18 colonics, all that I had except four 

 swarms, and these were in my tenement hive. They 

 were made up very strong, and had plenty of honey; 

 but they acted very much as did friend Good's bees 

 in his tenement hives; they would not quiet down 

 as sensible bees ought to, but kept " tear ing around," 

 if I maybe allowed the expression, and eating lots 

 of honey. When it was real cold weather, so cold 

 that bees could not fly, there would often be two 

 quarts of bees hanoing out at each entrance. In 

 January they commenced to have the dysentery, 

 and then they "just went." I do not feel like blam- 

 ing the tenement hive for my loss, as friend York, 

 who lives a few miles from here, wintered 30 colo- 

 nies in tenement hives, losing only three swarms. 



Late in the season I had an opportunity to trade, 

 with two difl'erent parties, and get some black bees 

 at a bargain. There were three swarms at one place 

 and four at another. The men of whom I obtained 

 the bees had always wintered tlacJr bees with little or 



no protection ; one bad never met with veryhcaA"y 

 losses, and the other had never lost a swarm; so I 

 concluded to risk these bees without protection, 

 just this once. (There, 1 couldn't keep the "little 

 chicks "out of the mud without cha?ing them most 

 of the time, so they had to go into the house, and I 

 have found a more comfortable seat in the shop- 

 door.) Three of the swarms that I had away from 

 home were in two-story Simplicity hives, were very 

 strong in numbers, and had plenty of honey. 1 saw 

 them in January, and they were so strong then that 

 I thought they would stirely go through. In Febru- 

 ary there was a thaw, arid a few days later I was in- 

 formed that my bees were dead. When I moved the 

 hives home, then I discovered the trouble. The bees 

 had moved into the upper story to winter, and the 

 dead bees had accumiilated upon the tops of tho 

 frames in the lower story, and shut the hees in. There 

 was nothing over the frames, and the bees had tried 

 to get out through the crack where the cover joins 

 the hive. There was a big ring of bees clear around 

 the inside of the hive close up to this crack. It 

 seemed as though they had died struggling for free- 

 dom. I thought, "Oh if I had only brought my bees 

 home, where I could have seen to them I" 



Two other swarms that were away from home 

 starved, even if they did go into winter-quarters 

 with 30 lbs. of honey. Another was so weak that I 

 put it in with another swarm. The swarm that came 

 through all right was in a double-wail hive, no chaff, 

 but just a dead-air space. 



It sometimes fairly makes my head " swim " when 

 I think of all the articles that IhaA'C readthis spring 

 upon the subject of wintering bees. One says, win- 

 ter tho bees in a cellar, and have the cellar dry; an- 

 other says the same, only you must have the air 

 damp. One says, "Give your bees water while in 

 the cellar;" another says, "Don't." One says. 

 " Leave the bees out of doors, and give them protec- 

 tion ; " another says, " Raise the hives upon blocks, 

 so that thej' can have plenty of air; " and the Dick- 

 ens of it is, bees have been wintered successfully 

 with all of these different methods. There are two 

 things, however, upon which most of us agree, and 

 that is, in havingplcnty of youngbees and plenty of 

 good stores. I don't think the white-sugar diet for 

 winter has been tried as much as it ought to have 

 been. At present, I feel verj- much like following 

 Doolittlc in one respect, and that is, to put part of 



