THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



229 



bright rays of the sun shall not entice 

 the bees out when it is too cool for 

 them to fly. 



I also prefer to winter a part of the 

 bees in the cellar, for I like the idea of 

 '•'mixed wintering," as by this plan no 

 extreme loss is likely to occur ; for a 

 winter which is severe on the bees 

 out-of-doors is generally good for cel- 

 lar wintering. The bees are set in the 

 cellar about the middle of November 

 and the hives are piled one on top of 

 the other, the caps being left on the 

 summer stand. In this way the cel- 

 lar is filled full, except a passage way 

 through the centre to the back end, 

 through which I pass once every two 

 weeks to see if all is right, as far as tem- 

 perature, mice, etc., are concerned. 

 Otherwise they are left undisturbed, 

 unless a whim seizes me to peep in 

 to one or two colonies for the curi- 

 osity of the thing. The temperature 

 of the cellar is kept at 43° to 45°. 

 Once every month I carry in a two- 

 bushel bag of the same sawdust re- 

 ferred to above, and scatter it in the 

 passage way and between the hives 

 as far as I can, to take up dampness 

 and keep the dead bees from mould- 

 ing ; in this way all is kept sweet 

 and nice. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



No. 6. 



CHAS. JNIUTH. 



SAFE WINTERING OF BEES. 



Wintering of bees remains still 

 an unexhausted subject because dif- 

 ferent men at different times and un- 

 der different circumstances don't do 

 things alike in spite of their preten- 

 sions. We have heard it stated that 

 parties never lost a colony for years 

 w4ien, another winter, they would 

 lose the best part of their apiary, 

 although the bees had been prepared 

 in the same manner every time. Very 



few men acknowledge their mistakes, 

 either from ignorance of the same 

 or a misplaced pride. 



Since modern bee culture taught 

 us to increase our product five or 

 ten fold, it is obvious that we had to 

 encroach somewhat on the natural 

 instinct of the bee for which we must 

 make up when winter begins or suf- 

 fer the consequences. 



A swarm in good normal condition, 

 hived in an old-fashioned box-hive, 

 with pebbles or small blocks under its 

 corners will build combs fifteen to 

 twenty inches long. Brood will be 

 raised in the lower-half or lower- 

 third of these combs while the upper 

 parts will be filled with honey which 

 remains there for a safe deposit be- 

 cause the keeper can't get at it. The 

 hive open below, and with eight to 

 twelve inches of honey above the 

 cluster, is the talisman against hard 

 winters. The bees need never leave 

 their cluster but keep gradually mov- 

 ing upward as the honey within their 

 reach gets consumed. The winter 

 may last a month longer than usual 

 and there are still a few inches of 

 honey above the cluster. The hive 

 open below admits of no accumu- 

 lation of moisture ; consequently of 

 no mouldy combs and no sour honey. 

 It has (or may have) lots of bee- 

 bread, but the bees never die of dys- 

 entery. Such were the colonies of 

 my grandfather. He had colonies 

 twenty-five years old with the ends 

 of combs as thick as a finger resting 

 on the plank below. There was no 

 end to them. He did not get much 

 honey but any number of swarms, 

 and he could go at any time and 

 bring in a nice piece of comb honey, 

 at the advent of the visit of a friend. 

 He never lost bees in wintering, unless 

 they were cases of starvation, when, 

 for instance, late swarms were unable 

 to obtain their winter stores ; or when, # 

 after the superseding of a queen, the 

 young queen had been lost and moth 

 took possession of the combs. This 

 would happen at any time of the 



