1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1081 



^ 



hi 



HOW MANY BEES A COLONY SHOULD CONTAIN 

 TO WINTER WELL. 



" Good morning, Mr. Doolittle." 



"Good morning, Mr. Smith. This is a 

 nice morning after the frost last night." 



"Yes, indeed. And its getting cold is 

 what brought me over to see you." 



" How is that?" 



"It is like this: Three of my neighbors 

 have some late swarms of bees that they are 

 intending to brimstone for their honey soon, 

 as they think that these colonies are too 

 light in bees and stores for wintering; and 

 as they do not wish to feed for the sake of 

 keeping more colonies, they intend to kill 

 them." 



' ' That is the way farmer bee-keepers used 

 to do when I was a boy; in fact, the bee- 

 keepers of those days quite generally killed 

 their heaviest and lightest colonies in that 

 way every fall for nearly all the surplus 

 honey they had. But excuse me for inter- 

 rupting you. What has the killing of these 

 bees to do with your coming to see me? " 



"I have been thinking that these men 

 would let me have the bees without killing, 

 if I would take the bees from their honey, 

 giving them the honey and I taking the 

 bees." 



"Quite likely. But what would you do 

 with the bees?" 



* ' I have over 100 combs full of honey that 

 I have taken this summer, with the thought 

 that I might need them this fall to give to 

 different colonies as stores for the winter; 

 but the good yield I obtained from buck- 

 wheat has filled the hives so that the bees 

 have all they need, and I thought I could 

 get these bees and put them on these combs 

 of honey, and thus winter them, as I do not 

 have as many colonies as I wish I had." 



"That would be a good scheme, and one I 

 have tried very many times with success." 



"That gives me courage. But the point 

 I wish to know most about is, how many 

 bees should I put in a hive with these combs, 

 as I do not suppose that many, if any, of 

 these doomed colonies have sufficient bees 

 for wintering separately? About how many 

 bees should I use for each hive of combs 

 containing from 25 to 30 pounds of honey? " 



" It is calculated, I believe, that there are 

 about 5000 bees in a pound, where they are 

 taken from the frames without filling them- 

 selves with honey more than they naturally 

 are when not disturbed. Then it is calculat- 

 ed that 20,000 bees make a good strong col- 

 ony three weeks before swarming. But at 

 swarming time there may be double this 

 number, or more, so that, where we work 

 for comb honey on the non-swarming plan, we 



usually calculate on from 40, 000 to 60, 000 bees 

 as making a good colony for working in sec- 

 tions to the best advantage. But my opin- 

 ion is that more colonies go into winter quar- 

 ters, which are called strong, with from 

 12,000 to 15,000 bees than there are that 

 contain a larger number." 



"Then you think that 15,000 bees would 

 be sufficient to put into each hive I could 

 have filled with combs of honey?" 



" That would be my opinion. " 



"And I can find out about this matter by 

 weighing the bees I drive out for these 

 neighbors, and so stock each hive with about 

 three pounds of bees and a queen? " 



"Yes; but you will have to drive the bees 

 in order that you may have the bees and the 

 owners the honey, will you not?" 



"That is my expectation." 



' ' By thus doing you will cause the bees to 

 fill themselves with honey, so that one pound 

 of bees filled with honey will weigh more 

 than a pound of bees shaken from the combs 

 would, as a rule." 



"That is so; and it is something I had not 

 thought about. How am I to get at this 

 matter? " 



' ' From several careful calculations I am 

 satisfied that, if 5000 bees shaken from the 

 combs, without any special disturbance of 

 the colony, will weigh one pound, they will 

 weigh fully two pounds when driven out as 

 you propose, so that I should calculate I 

 wanted from 5 to 7 pounds of these driven 

 bees to each hive of combs containing 25 to 

 30 pounds of stores." 



* ' I guess that is about right. At least I 

 will try that weight. But how would you 

 get at this matter — put the bees all in one 

 great batch, and then dip out six pounds for 

 each hive? " 



"That would hardly do, for you would get 

 the larger part of the queens killed, or three 

 or four in one hive, while others would have 

 no queen." 



"That is so. I was a fool or I would have 

 thought of that. Tell me just what you 

 would do. ' ' 



" I would take my scales along; and as 

 each colony was driven into a box I would 

 weigh them separately. Then each and ev- 

 ery swarm that weighed 5 pounds or more I 

 would hive separately in one of the hives 

 having from 25 to 30 pounds of stores. In 

 this way you will place each colony in about 

 the same condition for wintering that it 

 would have been in had it been left in its 

 own hive— only you insure it sufficient stores 

 for success along this line." 



"That I can see readily. But how about 

 the weaker ones, or those having less than 

 5 pounds of driven bees? " 



"These I would unite in this way: Say 

 you have the bees from one of these weak 

 colonies which weigh 3 pounds, and those 

 from another weigh 4 pounds. I would 

 dump the two together, shaking them up 

 well before running them into a hive; and 

 if I had one weighing 2 pounds and another 

 4 or 5 pounds, these I would dump together 

 in the same way. In short, take two, three, 



