236 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



present to your readers in due time. 

 Although I have been a constant 

 reader of nearly all of our journals, 

 and have experimented for eighteen 

 years, I have failed of success, when 

 adopting as nearly as possible, the 

 exact conditions reported as success- 

 ful with others. I had begun to be- 

 lieve that nothing short of artificial 

 stores could secure practical success 

 for me, but more recent developments 

 have encouraged me to inaugurate 

 another series of experiments, which 

 as above stated are already begun. 

 In my book, in the chapter on win- 

 tering, I have detailed the chemical 

 analysis and other experiments 

 which compel the opinions herein 

 set forth, and so have deemed it 

 economy of time and space to ex- 

 clude them from this article. 



Dowadac, Mich. 



No. 11. 

 C. W. Daytok. 



As my time for the preparation of 

 an essay on this subject is limited, 

 and as it would require a volume to 

 properly examine the points bearing 

 relation thereto, I will not take pains 

 to construct and sort so much lan- 

 guage but will give in a plain and 

 brief way some of the methods I have 

 practised and by which I have suc- 

 ceeded. I might say that though I 

 have always found the road to suc- 

 cess to be very plain and straight, I 

 varied it so far and so often that it 

 would be hard to tell whether I win- 

 tered as many bees as I lost. 



Perhaps it is correct that the dif- 

 ference between success and fail- 

 ure in apiculture is bee diarrhoea and 

 99 per cent of the cases of diar- 

 rhoea are caused directly or indi- 

 rectly by the condensation and 

 accumulation of moisture. This 

 being so, the prime consideration is 



the prevention of moisture, and how 

 I prepare the colonies to accomplish 

 this, is what I propose to tell. To 

 tell how I might winter them or how 

 I might not winter these would be 

 too much to put in one article. 



The first of importance in prepar- 

 ing a colony for winter, is to see that 

 the stores are pure and wholesome, 

 and after this it is simply a matter of 

 ventilation. 



In providing the ventilation of the 

 hives in cellar wintering, it will be the 

 most easily done to suit different sized 

 colonies with the temperature at 

 about 45°, and while very strong colo- 

 nies would winter well with the whole 

 top of the hive open, a small colony 

 would be almost sure to die, and 

 therefore should not be ventilated so 

 much, or. else the temperature should 

 be higher than 45°. 



As the temperature of a cellar can- 

 not be adjusted to suit different sized 

 colonies at once, I find it best to vary 

 the thickness of the coverings to the 

 brood- chambers which sometimes 

 was from a burlap to a cushion of 

 chaff. I have read of wintering with 

 naturally sealed brood- chamber, but 

 as a hive, as sealed by the bees, is a 

 long way from being water-tight and 

 as where it is placed in the cellar, it 

 becomes more and more so, in ac- 

 cordance with the dampness of the 

 cellar, it is reasonable to suppose that 

 the reports of wintering without some 

 kind of upward hive ventilation were 

 mistakes. Out of a hundred or 

 more colonies prepared without up- 

 ward hive ventilation, I have been 

 unable to get one decently through 

 the winter, while whole apiaries hav- 

 ing upward ventilation wintered per- 

 fectly without any loss. 



Of the many ways of wintering on 

 the summer stands the one I prefer 

 is to bank around and extending over 

 the brood-chamber six or eight inch- 

 es of forest leaves and then cover 

 with a foot or more of dirt. Of course, 

 there should be a passage from the 

 entrance to the outside air so the 



