146 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



I regard them as quite safe and 

 remove all surplus if any, and con- 

 fine the bees to the brood apartment 

 by means of quilts made of rag 

 carpeting or coarse coffee-bag ma- 

 terial. This is all the protection 

 necessary in our climate. I have 

 tried chaff hives and other methods 

 of protection thoroughly, and in 

 every trial some single-wall unpro- 

 tected hives would bring the bees 

 through in better condition and 

 have invariably cast the first 

 swarms. The only genuine cases 

 of dysentery I ever had in my 

 apiary had for their direct cause 

 damp, mouldy chaff cushions. Of 

 course I speak in behalf of my own 

 experience, in a climate where the 

 average winter is "open" and much 

 w^et weather prevails. Farther 

 north, where the air is cold and dry, 

 the case is doubtless different. 

 Still in my opinion more bees die in 

 winter in the north from being 

 "coddled" to death, than from all 

 other causes put together. After 

 my bees are prepared for winter as 

 above stated, I let them severely 

 alone except to watch the covers 

 to the hives and see that the^^ shed 

 water perfectly. All hives that are 

 not supplied with an abundance of 

 stores are marked in order that 

 they may not be forgotten. Such 

 hives receive attention during mod- 

 erate weatlier in February, and 

 thence till fruit bloom. 



As soon in the spring as pollen 

 is to be obtained by the bees, say 

 from the 20th of March to the first 

 of April, I examine thoroughly 

 every colony and if any are queen- 

 less I give them a frame of brood 



and let them rear a queen. Such 

 colonies are but little, if any, behind 

 other colonies. We generally have 

 drones flying by the 15th of April. 

 In the spring of 1882 I had a queen 

 mated between the first and tenth 

 of March. ' Very small nuclei can 

 be safely wintered, but it is poor 

 econoni}' to do it unless to save 

 valuable queens. Such small col- 

 onies consume a much greater 

 proportion of stores than full col- 

 onies do. Another fact I feel in- 

 clined to mention in this connec- 

 tion, especiall}'^ as I do not remem- 

 ber of ever seeing anything in print 

 touching the subject, is, that it is 

 impracticable to handle bees much 

 when there is but little unsealed 

 honey in the combs, as most col- 

 onies will bite the capping full of 

 holes and thus waste their stores to 

 no purpose. Therefore if it be- 

 comes necessary to hunt up queens 

 or to perform any operation which 

 requires a thorough overhauling of 

 a colony at a time when the bees 

 are getting nothing from the fields, 

 it will pay to feed such colony a 

 quart of liquid food the evening 

 before they are to be handled the 

 next morning. 



Where a few colonies only are to 

 be haudled the loss on this account 

 does not amount to much, but in 

 a large apiary run for profit econo- 

 my should be the watchword. I 

 have never experienced any trouble 

 on this account in the spring of the 

 year, because if frequent handling 

 does cause the bees to consume a 

 larger quantity of honey, the honey 

 is not lost, because it prepares the 

 bees for rapid brootl-rearing. 



