276 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



gathering some honey. My best 

 hive gave me 140 pounds extra honey. 

 I had it tiered up four stories high. 

 The two lower stories I never dis- 

 turbed at all. It is three stories now 

 for winter. This colony has never 

 swarmed and I have never seen a 

 drone in or about it. 



Salad 0, Bell Co., Texas, 

 Oct. 14, 1S86. 



WINTERING BEES, AND 

 OTHER MATTERS. 



L. E. BURNHAM. 



The season for preparing bees for 

 winter is at hand ; and the question 

 with beekeepers now is : What is the 

 best method of packing bees and 

 how shall we winter successfully? 



I shall prepare my bees in the 

 same manner as heretofore advocated 

 by Mr. J. E. Pond, jr., Foxboro, Mass., 

 in the back numbers of the " Api " 

 which I have practised successfully 

 for the last five winters ; and never 

 having lost a colony by this method, 

 I do not see how one could improve 

 on it by adopting any other system. 

 It is very simple, inexpensive, and 

 is as follows : Place a burlap-sheet 

 over the frames and fill the upper 

 story with dry forest leaves (I prefer 

 maple leaves) . If the colony should 

 be weak, remove the four outer frames 

 andsubstitute for these chaffdivision- 

 boards. This is for single-walled 

 Simplicity hives. I have never used 

 a chaff-hive as I have had good suc- 

 cess without them. When packed as 

 above, my bees withstood our severe 

 winters and came [through in good 

 condition. 



COMB HONEY WrmOUT SEPARATORS. 



After trying another season to pro- 

 duce comb honey vvithout separators. 

 I am constrained to think that it is 

 almost impossible to do so, and have 

 good straight combs, that will admit 



of glassing and crating, in case we 

 wish to ship our honey to distant 

 markets. While I admit that we can 

 obtain a larger surplus without their 

 use I think that it is more than 

 counterbalanced, by having every 

 comb straight, true and merchantable. 



PERFORATED METAL IN HONEY- BOARDS : 

 CROSSWISE VS. LENGTHWISE. 



I wish to call attention to a fact 

 which I have observed this season, 

 and which I have never seen men- 

 tioned in any of the bee journals. It 

 is this. I find by actual experiment 

 (no theory) that my bees work better 

 and store honey faster where the 

 hives are furnished with honey- boards 

 in which the perforations run cross- 

 wise of the brood-chamber instead 

 of lengthwise. I have tried both 

 ways under ecjual conditions and 

 with very unequal results. 



Can you give any reason for this 

 Mr. Ediior, and have you ever heard 

 it remarked by any one else ? 



Essex, Mass., Oct, 2j, 1886. 



For the American ApiculturUt. 



NOTES FROM CANADA. 



K. F. HOLTERMAX. 



The most important step in the way 

 of opening out a honey market for 

 Canada, viz., the shipment of comb 

 and extracted honey to the colonial 

 exhibition is meeting thus far with 

 success. 



The honey has been safely placed 

 upon exhibition at Kensington in a 

 building especially erected for the 

 purpose. About twenty per cent is 

 first-class comb-honey, the balance 

 extracted. The bulk was secured 

 from clover, the balance from linden. 



Messrs. S. T. Pettit, the president 

 of the Ont. beekeepers' association, 

 McKnight, Cornell and Jones are 

 with the exhibit. They and several 

 other Canadian beekeepers have 



