THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



107 



mer stands in double-walled hives. But 

 as these were in single walled hives and 

 their owner had no suitable place ia the 

 cellar, they were placed in a dark room, 

 that is, in the northwest corner of the 

 house. The room is well ventilated but 

 has no outside opening in winter. A 

 door opens into a room where a coal 

 fire is kept day and night and on very 

 cold nights this door is left open, Tlie 

 entrances to the hives are left wide open, 

 and frames covered with sacks filled 

 with leaves. 



How do you think they will winter? 



Perhaps they will be like the bees of 

 a certain bee man of my acquaintance. 

 I asked him last spring, how his bees 

 were doing and he said "Oh ! the weath- 

 er was so warm last winter they ate them 

 selves to death." Tliere is no doubt, 

 that eating was done • but the question 

 is who did the most of it, the bees, or 

 the man? 



Mrs. a. L. Hallenbeck. 

 Millard, Nebraska. 



BEES SWARMING; QUEEN-BEES. 



In late issues of the Api, you have 

 asked beekeepers to relate their expe- 

 rience. Here is some of mine. It may 

 not be of any value to you, but some 

 of it is quite contrary to some of the 

 bee literature floating around ; some 

 in school books, some in expensive 

 works of reference. Colony No. i 

 (built up from nucleus purchased of 

 Mr. Alley) sent out a swarm June 24, 

 1890, which reduced No. i five pounds 

 in weight. Had on queen-trap and sup- 

 posed the queen was safe, although af- 

 ter the bees were all in the air I could 

 not distinguish her from drones in the 

 trap. Though the bees had all clus- 

 tered before I took the trap off. The 

 old hive was covered with a sheet ; the 

 bees all went back to the trap. 



They seemed very loath to enter the 

 new hive, in which were three nearly 

 full combs, having some stores. 



Finally, put the trap with adhering 



bees on top of the frames and drew the 

 trap cover. After a while they went 

 down amongst the combs. 



The next morning they seemed to 

 be hunting for something outside as 

 though they were queenless. Exam- 

 ined them in one week, found no signs 

 of queen. 



Examined again July 6, and found the 

 three frames pretty well filled with drone 

 brood by laying workers as it afterward 

 proved. July 8, another swarm came 

 from No. i (fourteen days between) 

 which reduced the weight seven pounds. 

 Same day ordered queen of Mr. Alley. 

 Saturday eve, July 12, cut out all queen 

 cells in No. i, except two of the largest 

 and finest in one frame, which I put 

 into the hive with the laying workers. 

 July 13, the queen from Mr. Alley was 

 successfully introduced to No. i. In 

 three or four days examined No. 2 

 (the first new swarm) and found one 

 of the queen cell caps cut offevenly, the 

 other cell was torn into and a large part 

 of it removed. Saw the young queen, a 

 fine large one. Same day No. i , still 

 had plenty of sealed brood. Cut the cap- 

 pings of the drone brood and that young 

 queen hustled things in that hive, al- 

 though they got pretty low before the 

 young bees got out for forage. They 

 got pretty strong for winter. 



Query : Did the old queen come out . 

 with tlie first swarm ? 



BEES don't always DTK OF COLD. 



We had a little experience a year ago 

 last January which shows that bees do not 

 always die from the effects of severe 

 cold. A small colony, or nucleus (the 

 result of a division the August previous) 

 not much over a quart of bees in all, 

 were left on the summer stand to win- 

 ter. Walls double; i^ inch air space. 



Along in tlie month we had a great 

 blow, the mercury going considerably 

 below zero. Being away from home 

 myself "from early morn to dewy eve" 

 Mrs. Swain about noon thouglit to look 

 about the bees, and was somewhat star- 

 tled to find the cap and all the cover- 

 ing blown from that little colony. How 



