CHAPTER XI. 

 WINTERING BEES. 



There will be little complaint of losses in wintering bees, whether in 

 a cold climate or a warm one, whether indoors or outside, provided the 

 following points are observed with each colony: 



(1) The colony must have a good queen. By a good queen is meant one 

 not over two years old and which shows no signs of failure during the 

 latter part of the season. It is preferable to have a queen of the cur- 

 rent season's raising. Such a queen, if reared from good stock and 

 under good conditions during the latter part of the summer, will be in 

 her prime the following spring, and if no other conditions are lacking 

 will have her colony strong for the harvest. 



(2) Plenty of good lees. Bees that are several mouths old or that 

 have gathered a heavy fall harvest of honey are not good to depend 

 upon for the winter. They drop off gradually of old age before there 

 are young bees to fill their places, and the queen, however prolific, not 

 having bees enough to cover her eggs, can not bring up, as she other- 

 wise would, the strength of the colony to a proper standard in time 

 for the harvest. There should be young bees emerging at all times up 

 to the month of October, or, in the South, even later. 



(3) Good food and plenty of it. Any well-ripened sealed honey that 

 is not crystallized is good winter food. Honeydew stored by bees and 

 honey from a few flowers (cruciferous plants, asters, etc.) crystallizes in 

 the combs soon after it is gathered and the bees are obliged to liquefy 

 it as they use it. They can not do this well in dry, cold weather, and 

 dampness within the hive, though it might enable the bees to liquefy 

 the crystallized honey, is otherwise inimical to bee life, especially so 

 during winter. Some of the crystallized food is also wasted; hence the 

 bees may starve even though the fall weight indicated sufficient stores 

 for winter. Disastrous results are very likely, therefore, to follow the 

 attempt to winter on such food. 



The removal of all pollen when preparing bees for winter has been 

 advised by some, who assert that it is unfit winter food and produces 

 dysentery. It will not, of course, alone sustain the life of the adult bees, 

 but if all conditions are right no more of it will be eaten than the bees 

 require to repair the waste of bodily tissue, and this being slight in 

 winter the consumption is small as long as other food lasts. The pollen 

 grains which by accident find their way into honey as the bees gather 

 it would probably be quite sufficient to supply this waste in the case of 

 the adult workers and no harm would result to these bees from the 

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