422 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



cannot quite agree with him in all of 

 his conclusions. He says : " I am 

 now able to say that if we ever ex- 

 pect to winter bees seientifieally — 

 perfectly— we must provide them with 

 conditions and surroundings that they 

 may hibernate." (Italics are mine.) 

 In another paragraph he says : " My 

 belief is that we shall not be able to 

 winter bees perfectly until we shall 

 master the problem of hibernation— 

 until we shall secure to them that 

 perfect rest, etc." It seems to me 

 that " perfect rest " would be absolute 

 death. 



Again he says : " What hiberna- 

 tion is, and how it can be secured, 

 will appear from the following." He 

 then gives a detailed account of his 

 experiments and observations, which 

 being summed up amounts to about 

 this : If bees can be placed in a cellar 

 where the temperature is and con- 

 tinues at 41°, they will " hibernate " 

 and enjoy "that perfect rest." and 

 winter " scientihcally and perfectly." 



The following are some of my rea- 

 sons for thinking that the Doctor has 

 not as yet discovered the plan of win- 

 tering bees that will give perfect and 

 certain success : 



When I built my bee-cellar in a 

 sandy hill, it was made deep enough 

 to have all the bees below the natural 

 surface of the earth. It was then 

 covered first with oak poles ; then 2 

 feet of dry straw ; next 2 feet of sand; 

 then 1 foot of straw, and finished with 

 2 feet more of sand. When the bees 

 were in this cellar the temperature 

 was invariably 4,5a for the three first 

 winters, one of which was extremely 

 cold, and another very mild and open; 

 the third about an average. Through 

 these three winters I had from 80 to 

 180 colonies in this cellar, and not a 

 single one was lost, except 2 that 

 starved. Then came the winter of 

 ISSl-a'S, and by this time the straw in 

 the roof had decayed, and the naked 

 sand came down on the poles. Tli^ 

 weather became very cold soon after 

 the bees were placed in the cellar, 

 and the covering of sand froze solid 

 all the way through. The cold, frozen 

 under-surface of this sand roof so re- 

 duced the temperature that the mer- 

 cury stood at 410 without change until 

 March. (I have a thermometer hang- 

 ing on a string that I can draw up 

 through a small pipe ventilator in the 

 roof at all times. I watch this closely.) 

 When the bees were put in, in No- 

 vember, they were warm enough to 

 make lively movements, and if Mr. 

 Tinker is correct in his conclusions, 

 then those 200 colonies should have 

 hibernated in a few hours, and have 

 remained in "that perfect state of 

 rest," and should have wintered 

 "scientifically-perfectly," till breed- 

 ing, at least. But the fact is that out 

 of the 200 colonies only .50 came 

 through alive, and all 'were poor, 

 puny, weak things— hardly worth the 

 trouble and care to " pull them 

 through." 



The three preceding seasons had 

 given our bees a good flow of fall 

 honey, and breeding had continued 

 late, which gave a plenty of young 

 bees for winter and spring; and in 



addition to successful wintering there 

 was no " spring dwindling." 



In the fall of 1884 our bees got no 

 fall honey, and breeding was discon- 

 tinued early, and bee-death came 

 early also. There is nothing like 

 young bees for wintering and tor the 

 spring. 



It is my opinion, that in the nature 

 of things, all attempts to keep a bee- 

 cellar at a temperature of 41° through 

 the winter will be a failure ; thus, if 

 Dr. Tinker's theory should be true, it 

 is not practical ; and if not practical, 

 and if, as he concludes, we will never 

 be able to " winter bees scientifically 

 — perfectly," until we are able to 

 " provide them with conditions and 

 surroundings "— 41°— that they may 

 hibernate from the beginning of win- 

 ter to the time to begin breeding, 

 then it follows that we must give up 

 in despair and never expect to winter 

 our bees successfully. 



Orion,? Wis. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Bee-Keeping for Women, etc. 



MRS. MAHALA B. CHADDOCK. 



Bee-keeping is too hard work for 

 women— I have said it before, and I 

 say it again. When I say women, I 

 mean, of course, American women. 

 German and Swede women can keep 

 bees— they can do anything that re- 

 quires lifting; American women can- 

 not. All American women have a 

 tendency to heart disease, consump- 

 tion, or kidney disease, and carrying 

 l3ee-hives and boxes of honey is not 

 good for any of these diseases. 



Mrs. L. Harrison employs Irishmen 

 to do her lifting; Mrs. St. Julienne 

 Moore, of Louisana, has colored 

 women to help her ; the Linswik sis- 

 ters hoist the hives around some how 

 and get along. I am always watching 

 and waiting to get some man to help 

 me carry hives and honey. I have no 

 Irishmen and no colored women, and 

 the men are always busy. I want the 

 old colonies carried away just when 

 the bees are working most briskly, 

 and that is just the time that the men 

 are away oflf in the fields. 



Yesterday evening I wanted some 

 honey taken off, but there was the 

 hay to get in, and everybody was just 

 as busy as they could be. I took off 

 the forty-pound boxes, and as I could 

 not carry them to the house, I rolled 

 them (if that is the proper thing to 

 say of a square box) all the way to the 

 house, lifted them in, and let the bees 

 go out. I always put my honey-boxes 

 on the floor close to the screen-door 

 in the dining-room, and as fast as the 

 bees gather in bunches on the screen, 

 I brush them out with a wliisk broom. 

 Once last year I took off several boxes 

 of iiouey at one time, and as the day 

 was cool the bees became chilled after 

 leaving the honey-boxes, and fell 

 down inside the screen-door, looking 

 just like dead bees. I gathered up a 

 gallon and put them in the cages tliat 

 tlie bees were shipped in, and laid 

 them on the chimney over the kitchen 

 stove ; in two hours they all revived, 

 when I gave them to a colony. 



I have been hiving my bees in 

 empty hives, a la Hutchinson, all but 

 the one comb of brood that I put in 

 the centre, and I am getting a splen- 

 did lot of drone-comb. They seem to 

 build drone-comb for about four days, 

 after that they settle down to build- 

 ing worker comb. I take out all 

 sheets of drone-comb and hang them 

 ni the upper story of a Simplicity 

 hive, and let them fill it full of honey. 

 I have three of these completely full 

 now. This honey I will sell or use at 

 home, as it is not in shape to sell, and 

 I have no extractor. 



Bees are working on red clover 

 now ; the honey is better than the 

 white clover honey, to my taste. Is 

 it a fact that flowers do not secrete 

 nectar when the nights are cool V I 

 notice that Mrs. L. Harrison gives 

 that as a reason for the nectar not 

 coming in. Now, I am very loth to 

 dispute anything that a noted bee- 

 keeper says, but it is a fact that we 

 have had hot days and cool nights 

 ever since the white clover bloomed, 

 and my bees have gathered and are 

 gathering honey right along. Perhaps 

 the wetness or dryness of the atmos- 

 phere has something to do with it. If 

 it is cool and wet the chemicals do 

 not work right, but if cool and dry 

 they do. We have had dry weather — 

 only one good rain in six weeks. 



VermontjK) Ills. 



For tne American Bee J uumaU 



Horses and Bee-Stin2s, 



WM. MUTH-RASMUSSEN. 



The following article from the San 

 Francisco Chronicle of June 17, will, 

 no doubt, be of interest to readers of 

 the American Bee JouR>f al : 



It is a very common occurrence to 

 hear of horses being stung to death by 

 bees. All bee-keepers know tliat the 

 little insects have a peculiar aversion 

 to the odor of the stable, and for this 

 reason they are obliged to exercise 

 great care in going near the hive after 

 handling a horse, as they are almost 

 sure to be badly stung should there be 

 any of the odor of the horse observ- 

 able. Horses going near the hives, 

 especially if in a state of perspiration, 

 are particularly susceptible to attack, 

 and the result is almost invariably 

 death. A correspondent of the San 

 Diego Union offers a valuable sugges- 

 tion, founded upon his own experience, 

 on this point. A swarm of bees at- 

 tacked a valuable horse and stung him 

 in a terrible manner, so that the ani- 

 mal rolled upon the ground in his 

 agony. A smudge was made with 

 damp straw, and the bees thus driven 

 away from the horse. Then the ani- 

 mal was given a good dose of lauda- 

 num—several tea-spoonfuls altogether 

 —and in this manner the pain was 

 considerably relieved. He soon re- 

 covered sufficiently to be taken to the 

 stable, and was then thoroughly 

 sponged with a strong solution of 

 common baking soda and water. 

 This was repeated, and the result was 

 the animal entirely recovered, where- 

 as if this treatment had not been 



