366 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 1 



light to stream in at both ends as well as 

 through the top ; and very often Mr. Elwood 

 showed me that it was not necessary to take 

 the frames out at all, for these standing 

 combs could be shoved along, allowing the 

 light to stream through past the ends and 

 over the tops. In fact, there is no other 

 hive in the world that is more dissectible, 

 and, I might say, expansible, than the one 

 first devised by father Quinby and improved 

 by the late Capt. J. E. Hetherington, men- 

 tion of whom is made elsewhere in this issue. 



After seeing this hive handled I was very 

 enthusiastic about it ; but after seeing the 

 Hoffman frame handled I concluded that, 

 inasmuch as nine-tenths of the hives in the 

 country were of the Langstroth pattern, the 

 Hoffman would be more feasible to adopt 

 for such a hive. For that reason the Root 

 Company introduced the Hoffman frame in- 

 stead of the Hetherington-Quinby. 



Many of our readers perhaps will desire 

 to know more about the Hetherington- 

 Quinby frame. They will find it fully de- 

 scribed under "Frames, Manipulating," in 

 our A B C of Bee Culture. In a word, I 

 have felt about the Hetherington-Quinby 

 hive a good deal as I do about the metric 

 system of measurement— both excellent, but 

 practically impossible of general adoption, 

 as the old systems have become so thorough- 

 ly entrenched.— Ed.] 



THE WINTER IS STILL THE PARAMOUNT 

 QUESTION. 



Bee-cellars Below the Surface of the Ground in 



Michigan ; Occasional Low Temperatures 



will not Hurt the Bees. 



BY T. F. BINGHAM. 



We have heard of contagious or infectious 

 disorders among bees; and while it might be 

 well to consider them they are as nothing 

 compared with the risk and trouble incident 

 to the decimation of wintex*. 



"While bees do not freeze to death in Ten- 

 nessee, Georgia, or Virginia, bad wintering 

 is the bee-keeper's cala^nity there. The 

 spring, though long, fails to bring to the 

 ordinary bee-keeper strong colonies at the 

 early and proper time, just as in Michigan. 

 The fact can not be disguised. 



Bee-supply dealers all over the Northern 

 States are called upon to furnish hives that 

 will enable the bees to go through winter 

 and be strong in the spring. Hundreds of 

 bee-keepers have experimented with all 

 sorts of hives and all sorts of protection. 

 Mild favorable winters and good honey have 

 led bee-keepers thus experimenting to be- 

 lieve they had at last solved the vexed prob- 

 lem, only to find the next winter had dissi- 

 pated their cherished hopes. 



The winters of 1903 and 1904 found easy 

 access to more than half the bees located on 

 the self-same summer stands on which their 

 ancestors had lived and died in the varying 

 winters gone before ; with the sad result 

 that the worst had been realized. 



There are some features incident to keep- 

 ing bees warm in hives of every description 

 in the open air. The combs are open at the 

 edges, and in hanging frames open at the 

 sides and top also, as if suspended in mid- 

 air. This fact would not be of so much 

 moment were it not for the fact that above 

 the cluster equally open all around hangs 

 perhaps four times the icy honey needed, on 

 which hangs their only hope. One could, 

 with an ordinary imagination, conceive of a 

 plan presenting less reasonable hope. 



While it sometimes happens that in trees 

 and other cylindrical hives enough bees are 

 carried through a long winter in such shape 

 as to increase rapidly in the spring. The 

 case in ordinary hives, especially those fixed 

 for comb honey and civilized management, 

 the case is different. One may buy expen- 

 sive hives, weighted down with the choicest 

 lumber, and feel that bees can't help winter- 

 ing safely in such beautiful homes; and when 

 spring comes, realize how fleeting, vision- 

 ary, and transitory, bee life is. 



A winter depository below the surface of 

 the ground, so far as I can learn, offers the 

 greatest immunity from winter depletion 

 and absolute loss. Such proved to be the 

 case in the hard winters just passed, and it 

 is reasonable to presume that they will con- 

 tinue to do so. 



It seems strange that bee-keepers cling so 

 persistently to the methods of fifty years 

 ago in wintering, when in hives and fixtures 

 they are up to the best methods advertised. 

 It is a well-known fact that bees do not 

 winter as well in modern hives adapted to 

 section and extracted honey. Such being 

 the case, why not modernize or civilize the 

 plan of wintering as well as honey-raising ? 



My experience leads me to favor a cellar 

 entirely below the surface of the ground, 

 partly because it is below the wind, and so 

 is better situated to escape the frequent 

 changes in temperature; also that, as the 

 earth as a rule, in cold snowy winters, 

 freezes but little, so remains at a uniformly 

 medium temperature, greatly assisting the 

 bees in keeping the temperature of the cel- 

 lar above the freezing-point. It is well here 

 to explain or say that no cellar above which 

 is kept no fire, in Central Michigan, will 

 long remain above freezing. The bees, with 

 the other reasonable safeguards, enable al- 

 most any underground cellar, even with 

 abundant ventilation, to remain above freez- 

 ing. 



There is some question whether an occa- 

 sional frost in the cellar in which are bees 

 is a disadvantage. Some have maintained 

 that in cellars having no ventilation frost 

 would be objectionable, and it is reasonable 

 to suppose, as the hives would be likely to 

 be damp or wet, that it would; but in cellars 

 composed of Portland cement, and thorough- 

 ly dried out before the bees are put in and 

 abundantly ventilated, no injury is done the 

 bees if now and then the air becomes cold, 

 even to frost, occasionally, just as would be 

 the case were they on their summer stands 

 in frosty November nights. 



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