AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



791 



ural swarming a little. — Mrs. Jennie 

 Atchley. 



1. Yes, I can make the new colony 

 just as good as any swarm. 2. Take 

 away half of the brood after shaking off 

 part of the adhering bees. Take the 

 old queen with the brood, etc., and 

 form a new colony of them. Fill up the 

 old brood-nest with empty combs, and 

 give the old colony a young laying 

 queen. The old colony will catch all 

 the flying bees, and the young laying 

 queen will hold the colony together 

 through the longest season, and they 

 will store honey if there is any to be 

 found. The other division will build up 

 to a good colony, and, may be, do more. 

 — G. W. Demaree. 



CONVENTION DIRECTORY. 



1892. 



Dec. 27, 



Time and place of meeting. 



28.— Ohio, at Washington, Ohio. . 

 Dema Bennett. Sec, Bedford, O. 



Dec. 27-29.— North American, at Washington- 

 W. Z. Hutchinson, Sec, Flint, Mich . 



Dec. 28, 29.— "Vermont, at Burlington, Vt. 



H. W. Scott, Sec, Barre. Vt. 



1893. 



Jan. 10- 



Jan. 13, 

 Jan. 12- 

 Jan. 16, 



12.— Ontario, at Walkerton, Ont. 

 W. Couse, Sec, Streetsville, Ont. 



14.— S.W.Wisconsin, at Boscobel.Wis. 

 Edwin Pike, Pres., Boscobel, Wis. 



-14. — Minnesota, at Minneapolis, Minn. 

 A. K. Cooper, Sec, Winona, Minn. 



17.— Colorado, at Denver, Colo. 

 H. Knight, Sec, Littleton, Colo. 



In order to have this table complete, 

 Secretaries are requested to forward full 

 particulars of the time and the place of 

 each future meeting. — The Editor. 



North American Bee-Keepers' Association 



President— Eugene Secor.. Forest City, Iowa. 

 Secretary— W. Z. Hutchinson Flint, Mich 



National Bee-Keepers' Union. 



President— James Heddon ..Dowagiac, Mich. 

 Sec'y and Manager— T. G. Newman, Chicago. 



The Ladies' Home Journal, 



of Philadelphia, Pa., is perhaps the 

 finest monthly home magazine in the 

 world. If ordered before Dec. 20th, 

 1892, we can club it with the Bee 

 Journal, — both Journals for one year — 

 for $1.60, to either old or new subscri- 

 bers. If you are a new subscriber to 

 both Journals, you will receive ours the 

 rest of this year free ; and the "Ladies' 

 Home Journal" will begin with the 

 January number. 



A Living Hive in Winter — Num- 

 ber of Combs. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Many seem to suppose that it is neces- 

 sary to confine the bees on as few frames 

 as possible during winter for their safe 

 wintering, basing this supposition on the 

 idea that what is needed is the confining 

 of the heat from the bees in as small a 

 compass as possible ; reasoning from 

 this, that the cluster of bees will be 

 kept warm. 



The line of argument generally pre- 

 sented is, that ventilation, upper ab- 

 sorbents, a vacant space above and 

 around the bees, etc., ventilates the bees 

 to death, on the principle that warm air 

 seeks the top of a room, and that, unless 

 held there by a tight ceiling, the room 

 will not become nearly so warm as it 

 might otherwise. Now, while there is 

 reason in this, regarding the room, the 

 same cannot be fully applied to the bee- 

 hive, else many colonies of bees would 

 die which now live. 



How often it has been given in the 

 bee-papers of the past, that the only 

 colony surviving a hard winter in a large 

 apiary would be one in an old box-hive, 

 which was split from bottom to top, so 

 the snow could blow in on the bees, or 

 that the colony which lived was the one 

 the owner had overlooked, and left all 

 the surplus receptacles on. According 

 to the views expressed by some, these 

 colonies should have died, and those 

 carefully packed, contracted hives should 

 have preserved their bees alive. 



I have often noticed that in box-hive 

 apiaries the best colonies of bees in the 

 spring would be those in a tall or largo 

 hive that had stores enough in it to 

 crowd the bees down to the bottom- 

 board, and keep them near it all winter; 

 yet according to the theories of some, 

 these colonies should have died or been 

 the poorest. Here the bees were at the 



