AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



369 



Wintering Bees on the l§uniiner 

 Stancl§ — Hoiv to Do It. 



Written Jor the American Bee Journal 

 BY J. E. POND. 



Winter preparation of bees is now in 

 order, and in writing on the subject, I 

 draw solely from my own experience 

 and experiments, and will say in regard 

 to them, that during the thirty years I 

 have been engaged in keeping bees, win- 

 tering them only on the summer stands, 

 I have not met with 2 per cent, of loss. 

 The great and only secret in my own 

 locality, where the temperature ranges 

 from 30°, Fahr., above, to 20° below 

 zero, is ventilation, with ample stores so 

 placed that the colony can at all times 

 have access to them. Cold, of itself, 

 doesn't kill bees ; lack of stores, and ex- 

 cess of moisture, will kill them every 

 tim^. If these propositions are true, 

 and I believe them to be so, the question 

 of safe wintering is only a matter of 

 such preparation as will insure plenty of 

 stores and lack of moisture. 



I will state briefly my manner of prep- 

 aration, and the success I have met with 

 is proof to myself that it is the correct 

 one. 



I use a 10-frame Langstroth hive, 

 leaving but 9 frames in the brood-cham- 

 ber for winter use, evenly spaced ; each 

 frame being at least }{, filled in its upper 

 part with sealed stores. Over the frames 

 I place a Hill's device, or its equivalent, 

 covering the same with a piece of old 

 carpet or other porous material, with 6 

 or 8 inches of forest leaves pressed 

 loosely down upon this covering. For 

 ventilation, I give the whole entrance. 

 By this means I get downward ventila- 

 tion, which I claim to be the only true 

 ventilation for a bee-hive. The excess 

 of moisture imperceptibly passes off 

 through the top of the hive, preventing 

 the formation of frost, which frost I be- 

 lieve to be the chief cause of loss. The 

 bees can pass over the tops of the 



frames to any part of the hive, and thus 

 gain access at all times to their food. 



I have used double a»d single walled, 

 and chaff hives, and find little difference 

 in them as to loss. In fact, I have win- 

 tered -i-frame colonies, in hives made of 

 J^-inch stock, with safety. 



I believe the above ideas to be correct 

 in theory, and I have proved them to be 

 so, year after year, in practice, and 

 have no hesitancy in advising all who 

 winter bees on the summer stands to 

 adopt them, unless they have some 

 simpler and safer plan of their own. 



North Attleboro, Mass. 



Sometliing About Utaii and Her 

 People. 



Written ior the American Bee Journal 

 BY E. S. LOVES Y. 



Of late I have been asked many ques- 

 tions by bee-keepers, concerning Utah 

 and her people, and some of the queries, 

 to say the least, are somewhat amusing. 

 Some of the writers, after stating that 

 they had read with much interest the 

 little that I have written for the Bee 

 Journal, express a strong desire to 

 hear something more of our country. To 

 show the peculiar ideas held by many of 

 the people in the East, in regard to this 

 country, among the questions I have 

 been asked, are the following : 



Is polygamy practiced in Utah now? 

 Do bishops take other men's wives from 

 them? How many wives can a man 

 have ? Do they all live in the same 

 house ? Do they live in peace ? When 

 a man dies, can the widow marry again? 



Well, really, I might ask, what do you 

 take us for ? It reminds me of an in- 

 cident that occurred here 30 years ago. 

 In 1863, some California emigrants 

 were passing through this city. A little 

 girl and her mother were on the main 

 street viewing the sights; with some as- 

 tonishment the girl exclaimed, *' Ma, 

 where are the Mormons ?" The lady 

 answered, " Why, my dear, these people 

 you see on the street are all Mormons." 

 With surprise the girl replied, "Why, 

 papa said that the Mormons had horns 

 on them !" 



This was bad enough 30 years ago, 

 but now, at this late date, I sometimes 

 wonder where we are drifting. It seems 

 to me that we ought to have grown and 

 progressed into more enlightened ideas 

 ere this. If I were asked the above ques- 

 tions by people in Asia, I would not feel 

 surprised, but it does seem strange that 



