1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1369 



ter siipijlies: tor you know those York State 

 l)ee-keepers tell lis that this early buckwheat 

 honey is tine for wintering bees, and from 

 what experience I have had with it I am sat- 

 istietl it is all right; but I do not want any 

 aster or late unsealed fall honey left in the 

 hive for winter stores: so as fast as the strong- 

 er colonies— in fact, as fast as any of the col- 

 onies get their combs sealed up full of this 

 early buckwheat honey — we gave them up- 

 per stories to catch this latter end of the flow 

 or that part of the honey that is undesirable 

 for winter stores. 



A few years ago we used to get all the hon- 

 ey we coukl put into the upper stories: then 

 during the last half of September in this lo- 

 cation, when the brood was pretty well 

 Jiatched out, we fed granulated-sugar syrup 

 to make up any shortage in winter stores. 



yard this lieautiful August morning. It is 

 this: The allowing of the bees to crowd their 

 hives so full of honey has caused a very few 

 to swarm: and to catch these stray swarms 

 is the other reason. What 1 do with these 

 late swarms is another subject. 



By this time the reader will have a pretty 

 good idea of the condition our bees will be 

 in when the season closes, so I can now take 

 up the main subject, the wintering of bees 

 in clamps, and. with the assistance of a few 

 illustrations. I will try to descril)e my meth- 

 od in as few words as possible. 



In the first place, the word "clamp" may 

 confuse some. It is nothing more than a 

 trench dug in the earth, about 18 inches deep, 

 and wide enough so two rows of hives will 

 go in nicely without crowding: then the 

 length of the clamp will depend on the length 



t^\'l i 



Mmm, iw; 



^'. 



'^t e«a^:. ..-r 



WINTERING r<)L(^NIES 



IN "(LAMPS: A METHOD THAT 

 NOliTHEUN MICHIGAN. 



GIVES GOOD SUCCESS IN 



This latter plan is very good indeed when 

 one has Imt few bees and plenty of time; but 

 when one l)egins to count his colonies Ijy the 

 huntlred, and many of them are away from 

 home, we find that many methods we used 

 to tolerate and practice with one home yard 

 are not prai-tical when one is managing sev- 

 ex'al out-yards. Then from a financial stand- 

 point the difference in price between the 

 buckwheat honey and granulated sugar is 

 offset by the item of labor in extracting the 

 honey and feeding back the sugar. 



I told you a])ove there was one reason be- 

 sides writing that called me to the bee- 



of our 2X4 scantling which we place in the 

 l)Ottom of the clamp lengthwise to set the 

 hives on. It maj^ seem strange that the length 

 of the scantling should have any thing to do 

 with the length of the pit. The fact is, it 

 does not. We simply dig our pits this length 

 for convenience, for we find that it does not 

 make any dift'erence about the length, only 

 we had rather better results with from 20 to 

 35 colonies to the pit, so of late years we 

 make three to four pits to the yard of 20 odd 

 colonies. Three scantling are laid in the 

 bottom of the pits — one in the center and one 

 at each side, fiat side down, to set the hives 



