1881. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



243 





tliem to generate, during winter, the 

 warmth necessary to their existence. 



It seems that their instinct ilirects them 

 in the selection of their abodes; for, at 

 Borneo and Sumatra, as well as between 

 the tropics, they feel that to Inhabit a 

 hive is unnecessary, and they build their 

 oomb under the limbs of big trees; while 

 in northern climates they seel; the protec- 

 tion of hollow trees. The motion of the 

 sap maintains inside of the tree a temper- 

 ature above that of the outside. In north- 

 ern Russia the travelers, astonished at 

 seeing so far north so many bees, wonder 

 how so small an insect can resist the se- 

 verity of such a climate. To own bees, 

 as domestic animals, man, who inhabits 

 so varied countries, had to provide them 

 With dwellings suitable to the different re- 

 gions in which he was located. Thus dif- 

 ferent materials were used to make bee- 

 hives. In some parts of Africa bee- 

 keepers use hives made of sticks joined 

 together with wooden ligatures. In 

 Arabia, in Egypt, in Cyprus Island they 

 use earthen jars, as in some parts of 

 southern Europe. Farther north they pro- 

 cure gums ; farther yet, straw twisted and 

 fixed with willow twigs. But as bees are 

 indigenous to a warm climate, very often 

 these protections prove insufficient ; then 

 some tried to protect theircolonies by put- 

 ting them in places where cold could not 

 penetrate. 



In the middle of Russia they dig wells 

 20 or 25 feet deep. They pile in them 

 their bees, which are in gums ; the gums 

 are placed horizontally, the lower part of 

 the gum remaining open. The well is thus 

 filled to about six feet from its top. Then 

 a cabin, made of straw, is built upon the 

 well, and the bees are left to themselves 

 for five or six months. In localities, not 

 far distant from old quarries, or from dark 

 natural caverns, the bee-keepers bring 

 their bees in these for winter. Others 

 bury their hives in soils, and succeed well, 

 when the ground is not too wet. Some put 

 them in cellars, or in buildings, espe- 

 cially made for the purpose. 



All these means, although good in them- 

 selves have sometimes turned to disasters. 

 Such losses cannot be ascribed to fatality, 

 but to some wants of the bees which are 

 not fulfilled. Not the apiarian science, 

 but chance, had directed the cares be- 

 stowed ; and when the winter was over 

 the bee-keeper reckoned a great many 

 losses, which he was unable to explain. 

 He bad prepared his bees the same as 

 in the preceding years ; the same as did 

 his father and his forefather before. 

 Then with a simplicity similar to the 

 dark ages, he imputed his losses to the 

 fault that he had made, by selling for 

 money a few of his colonies ; or by forget- 

 ting to put a black crape on his hives at 

 the time o' the last death which occurred 

 in his family. 



Now, thanks to the studies of our prede- 

 cessors, the conditions of a successful 

 wintering are better known ; and when a 

 loss occurs in the apiary, the bee-keeper 

 cannot impute it to any other cause but 

 his lack of knowledge or foresight, or of 

 good management. 



Before going farther in our subject, let 

 us examine first what happens in a colony 

 during winter. There is a fact that a bee- 

 keeper ought not to lose sight of: it is 

 that bees, in winter, do not inhabit the 

 combs which are filled with honey They 

 gather directly below the sealed honey ; 

 the mass of the bees, on every comb, 

 being congregated in the form of a disk. 

 On this disk the bees hang imbricated, 

 like the shingles of a roof. Every bee has 

 its head under the abdomen of the bees 

 immediately above ; and so on, to the bees 

 which are close to the honey. These last 

 bees suck honey and give some to the bees 

 immediately below ; these do the same for 

 their neighbors ; and so on, to the last bee 

 of the group. As soon as the honey of 

 the first attainable cells is exhausted, all 

 the mass move upward to reach the full 

 cells till the top of the comb is reached. 

 Experiments snow that the temperature, 

 inside of the group, is about TO degrees. 

 As long as such temperature is held in- 

 side the group the bees remain motionless, 

 almost sleeping. It the temperature of 

 the mass decreases, the bees who feel the 

 cold generate warmth by a beating of 

 wings. This motion sends some warm air 

 downwards to warm the bees, which are 

 altogether under the group. It is for 

 this cause that, when the weather is very 

 cold, we can hear the humming of our 

 bees inside their hives. But by beating 

 their wings bees digest faster ; then the 

 consumption of honey increases. Such 

 is the cause why a colony ill protected 

 consumes more than a colony located in a 

 place where the temperature is suitable. 

 This increased consumption explains also 

 why the intestines of bees, in winter, are 

 soon filled in unprotected hives. 



When the temperature keeps warm, the 

 queen, who dwells in the middle of the 

 group, begins to lay.then water is needed 

 to help in feeding the brood. If the colony 

 has wintered outside, the daily alterna- 



tives of warm and cold give to bees the 

 chances of going out for water, or procure 

 it inside the hive, by the condensation of 

 the steam produced by breathing. If the 

 bees are in a cellar, or in some other win- 

 ter depository, when the rising of the tem- 

 perature excites the queen to lay, as there 

 is no condensation of steam, the bees be- 

 cbme restless on account of the. dearth of 

 water. 



Now that we know how bees behave in 

 the hives during winter, let us see how to 

 prepare them for a safe wintering. The 

 first thing is to ascertain that every col- 

 ony has a queen, and to see whether our 

 colonies have enough bees to keep the 

 right temperature in the group. When 

 we find a queenless colony, it is an easy 

 matter to unite it with some weak colony 

 having a queen. We can also unite two 

 feeble swarms, to make a good one. As 

 to the number of bees necessary for a good 

 wintering, that will depend on the cares 

 and the means that the bee-keeper can 

 use to protect his bees. A colony num- 

 bering 10,000 bees or less, about two 

 pounds, can be successfully wintered if 

 well cared for. 



We have now to resolve the question of 

 wintering our bees inside or outside. If 

 outside, let us keep in mind that, in cold 

 spells, bees cannot pass from one comb to 

 another, and can starve on an empty 

 comb besides fall over out of their reach. 

 This fact, which gives to the large combs 

 a superiority over the small ones, led to 

 the practice of punching a few small holes 

 in the combs. Such care is not taken 

 as regularly as it ought to be : and I, for 

 one, have too often regretted my neglect 

 on that account, when my bees starved 

 with a quantity of honey in the hive. 



For the same reason and in order that 

 bees could more easily warm their groups, 

 it is indispensable to take all the empty 

 combs, reducing the number of the combs 

 to the space that bees can occupy, on con- 

 dition, nevertheless, that we leave honey 

 enouun to winter on. Of course, if some 

 of our colonies have too much honey, 

 while some are poor, it is an easy matter 

 to take one or two full combs from the 

 rich ones to give to the poor. It is gener- 

 ally admitted that 15 or 18 pounds are 

 enongh for a colony to winter on ; but it 

 is safer to leave more rather than less. 

 But do not waste honey ; a colony with 

 ten pounds more than what is necessary 

 will, on an average, be in better condition 

 for the crop than one with 10 pounds less. 



The next precaution is to see whether 

 the honey is of good quality, M. Maurice 

 Girard, a French scientist, in a book en- 

 titled "Les Abeilles," says that honey is 

 composed of crystallizable and uncrystal- 

 lizable sugars. The crystallizable sugar 

 is easily and completely digested by bees, 

 while the other is of a more difficult and 

 incomplete digestion. It is for that reason 

 that pure cane sugar is better than honey 

 for winter. For the same reason spring 

 honey is better than fall honey; honey 

 dew is still worse, and the juice of fruits 

 are the worst substances for wintering 

 bees. 



Very often it happens that bees have 

 put honey in cells partially filled with 

 pollen, and sealed them. This fact is 

 easily ascertained by looking through the 

 combs. The cells containing pollen have 

 no transparency. Not only the quantity 

 of honey is smaller in these combs, but 

 this honey is unsafe for winter, on ac- 

 count of the pollen which, eaten with 

 honey, compels the bees to void their 

 feces often. A colony living on pure 

 honey will endure 5 or 6 weeks of confine- 

 ment, while one with impure honey will 

 get the dysentery if unable to fly out 

 when needed. 



Unsealed honey is unsafe also on ac- 

 count of the water that it contains, and 

 of the water that it gets during winter, by 

 the condensation or the steam generated 

 by bees in cold days. The condensation 

 sometimes fills the cells containing the 

 unsealed honey, so as to appear in large, 

 round drops, held on every cell by capil- 

 larity, and ready to run out at the slightest 

 jar. When the capillarity is no longer 

 able to hold these drops they run out of 

 the cells, and the bee-keeper seeing this 

 sugared water at the entrance of the hives, 

 wonders how it is produced. Bees cannot 

 winter on such matter without becoming 

 sick. We therefore will act wisely in tak- 

 ing out all the frames containing unsealed 

 honey, especially when the number of 

 such frames is very large. After winter 

 these combs will greatly help the colonies 

 in brood-rearing. 



■ When the quantity of sealed honey 

 seems to be insufficient, the provisions 

 can be completed by syrup made from cof- 

 fee A or granulated sugar, dissolved in 

 warm water. The quantity of water 

 ought to be 1 pound and 1 ounce for 2 

 of sugar. Let me here advise bee-keepers 

 not to use glucose, or grape sugar, for 

 winter. 



If we have chaff or double-walled hives, 

 the protection around it is itself sufficient 

 to protect them on their summer stands, 



yet 1 advise to put under the bottoms of 

 the hives some dry material, such as dry 

 leaves or straw, and some also on the top 

 of the frames. I suppose that our hives 

 have a cap, as in the LongBtroth or 

 Quinbv, or that they are double story. 

 We take out the cloth, which ought to 

 cover the frames, and replace it with t; 

 mat, made of seed or straw, then we fill 

 the cap with straw or dry leaves. 



If we have single walled hives, there 

 are several ways of protecting them. We 

 begin by preparing the inside. In the room 

 made by reducing the number of combs 

 we place a partition board, or some kind 

 of cushion, and till the interval with dry 

 leaves or chaff. Then we fill the top, as 

 above, with some warm and absorbent 

 material, to rid the bees of the dampness 

 produced by the digestion and the respi- 

 ration. 



At one time I forgot to prepare a good 

 colony for winter. This colony had 7 

 Quinby frames, without partition, in a 

 hive of the capacity of 11. It had neither 

 cloth nor honey board, above the combs. 

 In the spring I found the family greatly 

 reduced in numbers and all trie honey 

 gone. All the combs were wet, as also 

 the sides of the hive, and the cap. The 

 dampness having lasted all winter, the 

 boards were soaked and blackened. To 

 rescue this unhappy colony I had to put 

 it in another hive, and give it dry combs 



Some bee-keepers advocate a current of 

 air in the hives ; a current that carries 

 away dampness. This method will do for 

 southern climates, but it increases the con- 

 sumption of honey too much for the north- 

 ern States. Yet, had I to choose between a 

 current of air and a tight closed top, with- 

 out other protection, I would prefer the 

 first. 



At one time, while preparing my bees 

 for winter, I was interrupted by a sudden 

 change of the weather. For a few days 

 the weather was very cold. When I re- 

 sumed the work, I found the under cloth 

 and part of the combs in every hive damp 

 and covered with ice. 1 then opened, for 

 comparison, a number of the hives on 

 which 1 had put a mat with dry leaves. 

 The combs were dry, in every one. At 

 noon of the same day, I noticed water run- 

 ning out of the unprotected hives, while the 

 entrances of the protected ones were dry. 



But, in our climate, the inside partition 

 is not sufficient to winter, on their sum- 

 mer stands, single boarded hives ; and we 

 have to provide an outer coat for them. 

 It results, from experiments made, over 

 100 years ago, by Klaumur and by Gelicu, 

 that very small colonies of bees can be 

 wintered safely, if the protection is suffi- 

 cient. They put straw hives, containing 

 weak colonies, in boxes filled with straw 

 or dry earth; after preparing channels, 

 through which bees could fly out. The 

 bees wintered perfectly. A number of 

 bee-keepers in this country have tried 

 this method, with excellent results, and 

 was not this way too cumbersome and ex- 

 pensive I would recommend it. 



For outer protection to our single walled 

 hives, we use dry leaves or straw. We 

 gather this material around the rear and 

 sides of the hives, and tie it about the 

 hives with a kind of rope ladder, made 

 with 12 or 15 laths, 20 inches long, and 2 

 strings tied together, in front of the hives. 

 This protection is sufficient. When win- 

 ter is over we roll our cord ladders and 

 put them in the garret. We do not put 

 them in front of the hives, for bees need 

 every warm spell, to fly out of the hive. 

 1 know a German bee-keeper who killed 

 his bees by preventing them from flying 

 out in winter, by means of a wire cloth 

 placed before the entrance. 



Far from advising bee-keepers to use 

 such precaution. 1 will give a suggestion 

 which is altogether the reverse of it. A 

 few years ago we had a very cold and long 

 winter. For 7 weeks our bees were eon- 

 fined, by cold, in their hives; and such a 

 cold ! One day I saw the thermometer 

 at 37° below zero. On the 16th of Janu- 

 ary the weather being warm I hastened to 

 the apiary. Of course I opened the weak 

 colonies first. Every one was alive. Sat- 

 isfied with the result, I did not disturb 

 the strong colonies. They did not on this 

 warm day fly out; while all the small ones, 

 awakened by my visit, filled the air with 

 their hummings. The cold weather came 

 again for 3 weeks more, and I found that 

 all my strong colonies were reduced in 

 numbers, or dead, from dysentery ; while 

 every one of the smaller ones were alive 

 and healthy. 



Now after a spell of more than a week 

 of cold weather, as soon as the thermom- 

 eter rises to 45', in the shade, I disturb 

 every colony to compel their bees to fly 

 out. 1 am not deterred from disturbing 

 them even by snow, if their confinement 

 has lasted 2 weeks ; for the loss of a few 

 bees, falling in the snow, is little, when 

 put in comparison with the risk of a con- 

 finement prolonged 6 or 7 weeks, or more. 



Of course such a disturbance would not 

 do during cold spells ; for the smallest 

 jarring of the hive excites bees to quit the 



groups, and the cold benumbs and kills 

 every bee that leaves the mass ; for al- 

 though tin' temperature of the central part 

 of the cluster is about 70 , the outside of 

 the cluster is -sometimes below the freez- 

 ing point. 



Every colony wintered on the summer 

 stand ought to have, as far as possible, its 

 entrance turned south and its bottom slant- 

 ing, so as to let the water generated by the 

 bees run out of the hive. 



From time to time- it is well to see 

 whether the entrance is free from dead 

 bees or ice ; for the lack of air would kill 

 the colony. 



For a good wintering in a cellar, or other 

 winter depository, the first precaution, 

 after looking for the queens and the pro- 

 visions, is never to put the colonies in the 

 cellar after a few days of cold weather; 

 but to wait till the morrow of a day during 

 which bees have had a good flight. The 

 reason of such a precaution is obvious. 

 Our bees will be confined in the cellar 

 for months ; if we put them in the cellar 

 when their intestines are empty, as they 

 are after a good flight, they will easily en- 

 dure a long confinement. As bees, after 

 4 or 5 months, remember the location of 

 their hives, care ought to be taken to 

 mark the place that every one occupied. 



The hives can be piled m columns of 4 or 

 even 5, with the precaution, if they are 

 piled without bottoms, to put a few laths 

 between them, to prevent the mixing of 

 the bees. 



The cellar ought to be as free from mice 

 as possible. The bees ought to have good 

 ventilation, I mean a current of air, by 

 opening the entrance if the bottoms are 

 nailed, and the cloth glued at the top. 



The cellar ought to be dark and easy of 

 ventilation, without admitting light. 



The temperature of the cellar ought to 

 be about 45= ; or 43°, when the bottoms are 

 nailed to the hives. When the tempera- 

 ture is suitable, it is only with an atten- 

 tive ear that you can detect the humming 

 of the bees. This humming increases as 

 the temperature increases or decreases. 

 When tlie room is too cold, the bees gen- 

 erate warmth by beating their wings : 

 when it is too warm, they roam on the 

 combs, impatient to go out. The temper- 

 ature can be raised by shutting the out- 

 side apertures of the cellar. It can be 

 lowered by opening the windows at night 

 if the nights are cold, or by putting in the- 

 cellar some ice to melt ; the drippings of 

 the ice should be received in a vessel. 

 When all these conditions are fulfilled, 

 bees can be left in the cellar for 4 months 

 without suffering. 



To replace the colonies on their summer 

 stands, select a day promising to raise 

 above 45°, in the shade, and hasten to bring 

 out all the bees before noon, so as to give 

 them a chance of flying out, on the same 

 day ; for a confinement in the hives by cold, 

 when their bowels are full, would be fatal 

 to a number of workers. If the bees do 

 not suffer in the cellar, they will act as if 

 they had wintered on their summer stands; 

 but if they have been restless for days and 

 weeks, as is sometimes the case when 

 February and March are warm, some col- 

 onies will swarm out of the hive in which 

 they have suffered. When such deser- 

 tions begin in the apiary, it is difficult to 

 prevent them from inciting other colonies 

 to follow the impulse. When such trouble 

 is anticipated, we ought to be careful to 

 bring out only a few colonies at a time, 

 waiting to bring more till the excitement 

 produced by the first flight has subsided. 



One of the causes of such untimely 

 swarming is the lack of water, caused by 

 the failing of brood, for the queens lay in 

 the cellar when the temperature rises ; 

 but the bees cannot find water to feed the 

 brood, since there is no condensation in- 

 side the hive. 



I will not speak on wintering bees in 

 closed bee houses, for such buildings are 

 not fit for our country. If the tempera- 

 ture of the closed room is cold, bees are 

 not better than on their summer stands ; 

 if it is warm, bees are incited to fly out in 

 cold days and cannot return. 



To sum up the above, for a successful 

 wintering of bees, every colony ought to 

 have a queen ; a sufficient quantity of 

 suitable food ; a protection against cold 

 and dampness ; an absolute quietness dur- 

 ing cold spells, with a chance, to fly out 

 every time they need it, if wintered on 

 their summer stands, or an equal and suit- 

 able temperature if wintered in dark cel- 

 lars. 



When these conditions are fulfilled, we 

 can be assured of a good success. Such is 

 the result of my observations continued 

 for 17 years, in which, having begun with 

 2 colonies, and sold several hundred, 1 

 have enough left to people 5 apiaries. 



Hamilton, 111. 



I®' The Northwestern Illinois and 

 Southwestern Wisconsin Bee-Keepers' 

 Association will hold its next meeting 

 Aug. 30, at Rock City, Stephenson Co., 

 111. Jonathan Stewart, -Sec. 



