THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



681 



color, and let them be there bred on 

 scientific principles, with the most 

 relentless culling and the most care- 

 ful tests 'I 



The mind of some one here is no 

 doubt full of notes of exclamation and 

 interrogation, and would exclaim : 

 "What! would you cross and com- 

 bine the races ?" My reply is, yes ! 

 If we ever succeed in malting a de- 

 cided improvement in the honey-bee, 

 that improved bee will not be a pure 

 blood of any of the existing races. 

 No existing race has a monopoly of 

 the desirable qualities— certainly not 

 the Italian. 



Let me make a suggestion, in clos- 

 ing, with regard to the cross-breeding 

 of bees. Some one, I have forgotten 

 who, in one of our apicultural publi- 

 cations, to illustrate nis ideas of the 

 evils of cross-breeding, said, in sub- 

 stance, that he had a cow— a cross, if 

 I remember, between a short-horn 

 and a Jersey, that proved to be an 

 excellent milker ; but, he went on to 

 say, a further cross would result in a 

 progeny of little value. He was in a 

 measure correct in his statements 

 with regard to the crossing of two 

 breeds, which had each been bred for 

 a purpose so entirely and radically 

 antagonistic to that of the other. In- 

 deed, he might have gone farther, for 

 his cow, the first cross might nat- 

 urally have inherited the poverty 

 stricken sinews of the one parent and 

 the non-milking qualities of the other. 

 But he was entirely in error in his 

 application of these facts to the case 

 of the honey-bee. 



As we have seen, all our races of 

 bees have been bred by nature for 

 honey-production, and so nearly equal 

 are they that each race has its friends. 

 From whichever parent a cross-bred 

 bee inherits, it must still be a honey- 

 producer, and the same must be true 

 of all subsequent crosses; and, to 

 produce anything else, nature must 

 " go back " on all her previously es- 

 tablished laws. 



After the reading of the above the 

 convention adjourned until 8 p.m. 



EVENING SESSION. 



The meeting was called to order at 

 8 p.m.. President Miller in the chair. 



An essay by James McNeill, ot 

 Hudson, N.Y., was read, on "Feeding 

 Bees for Winter." 



Dr. A. B. Mason then read the fol- 

 lowing essay, entitled 



WINTERING BEES. 



There has been so much said and 

 written on this subject that it would 

 seem that among the numerous 

 methods, each claiming to be the 

 best, the least experienced might find 

 some way to winter bees without the 

 annually recurring loss. 



Even among our most successful 

 apiarists we frequently hear of heavy 

 winter losses. This leads me to be- 

 lieve that it is not the want of the 

 knowledge, but a failure to put that 

 knowledge into practice. If it is 

 true, as we have been told from 

 childhood, "in a multitude of coun- 

 sel there is safety," we should all be 

 able to winter our bees without loss. 



In order to be successful in winter- 

 ing, we are advised by " knowing 

 ones" to keep our bees warm, at a 

 temperature anywhere from 40"^ to 

 90°, to keep them cool ; to keep them 

 in the wood-house, chamber, cellar, 

 or barn ; to bury them ; to pack with 

 chaff ; to remove all pollen ; to so fix 

 them that they will hibernate, and to 

 leave them out-doors without any 

 attention whatever, each wintering at 

 times with perfect success. But as 

 " one bird does not make a summer," 

 so success by any method for one 

 winter does not establish it as a fact, 

 that such method is the best. 



Five years ago Prof. Cook, in his 

 book, said : " If the problem of suc- 

 cessful wintering has not been solved 

 already, it surely will be, and that 

 right speedily. So important an in- 

 terest was never yet vanquished by 

 misfortune, and there is no reason to 

 think that history is now going to be 

 reversed." Has this prediction been 

 fulfilled y I fully believe it has, and 

 did all use the same forethought, 

 diligence and care exercised in their 

 other business, all would meet with 

 the same success in wintering bees 

 that they do in those avocations. 



I am not verdant enough to think 

 that I can offer anything entirely new 

 on this most important subject, and 

 can only hope to rather bring anew 

 before you what has already fre- 

 quently been said, and with the hiber- 

 nation goblin, and various other 

 theories staring me fully in the face, 

 I do not hesitate to say that without 

 pollen, as well as with, I do winter 

 my bees as safely and surely as my 

 horses, cows, and other stock. 



It is not to be presumed that 1 am 

 to settle this c|uestion of how to suc- 

 cessfully winter bees, but if all 

 thought and practiced as many who 

 succeed best do, I believe there would 

 be much less need of discussing this 

 question. 



The first question that would nat- 

 urally be asked is, what is the cause 

 of our winter losses ? All kinds of 

 causes are mentioned, such as cold, 

 confinement, too much and not 

 enough moisture, ventilation and 

 want of ventilation ; brood-rearing, 

 bad honey, starvation, pollen, not 

 hibernating, etc., but nearly all the 

 lost bees have diarrhea, and I believe 

 it is pretty generally admitted that 

 this is the great cause of winter loss. 



The next question, then, would be, 

 what is the cause of bee-diarrhea V 

 The answer to this is not so unani- 

 mous. That bee-diarrhea is the re- 

 mit of an over-loaded condition of the 

 intestines will be denied by but few. 

 But, what causes this over-loading ? 

 Some say," cold is the real cause," but 

 it seems to me this cannot be, for 

 fecal accumulations take place with- 

 out the aid of low temperature, and 

 one of our most prominent bee-keep- 

 ers has said that " cold alome cannot 

 produce fecal accumulations." 



In a lecture before the British Bee- 

 Keepers' Association, Mr. Frank 

 Cheshire said : " In prolonged spells 

 of intense severity, stores often be- 

 come (especially if unnaturally placed) 

 so cold that the bees cannot touch 

 them, and then the saccharine matters 



in their fluids being exhasted, they 

 have to draw upon their own muscular 

 tissues to work tliem into material which 

 should be heat producing ; that is to say, 

 the bee has now to oxidize herself, and for 

 the present is converted into a carnivor- 

 ous creature, having to devour lier own 

 body " "A portion of the tissues re- 

 mained which could not be got rid of 

 thus. This must pass away through 

 the bowels. A large quantity of 

 phosphates and sulphates passes off 

 into the bowels, and to these the 

 urinary secretions are added. But 

 while the bee is being loaded in this 

 way, another unhappy circumstance 

 is going on— the integuments of the 

 bee were being reduced in weight, it 

 becomes lighter and weaker ; yet the 

 bowels were getting so loaded that 

 when the bee tries to fly it has a 

 greater amount to carry than if it had 

 been properly fed." So we see that 

 starvation may sometimes be the 

 cause of diarrhea. 



If cold were the cause, keeping 

 them warm ought to remedy the evil, 

 but unfortunately it does not always. 

 If confinement is the cause, then why 

 do not all that are confined die f 

 Confinement is a necessity in produc- 

 ing diarrhea, but cold is not. There 

 can be confinement without diarrhea^ 

 but can there be diarrhea without 

 confinement V 



Ventilation, unless it be at the en- 

 trance of the hive, and brood-rearing, 

 it seems to me, need hardly be taken 

 into account in wintering. Poor 

 honey in the hive may, but does not 

 always produce diarrhea. The same 

 is true of pollen, but diarrhea is so 

 seldom produced without pollen that 

 the exceptions need hardly be taken 

 into consideration. That the eating^ 

 of bee-bread, and the floating pollen 

 in the honey during confinement,, 

 when not used in brood-rearing, will 

 not produce diarrhea, it seems to me, 

 cannot be truthfully asserted. 



That the wintering problem has- 

 been solved, I think no longer admit* 

 of doubt. Many things might be 

 named as aids in successful winter- 

 ing, but I believe all may be in- 

 cluded in two— proper food and right 

 temperature. That bees may be win- 

 tered on a very poor quality of honey 

 has been fully demonstrated, but 

 success is not always assured when> 

 wintering on any other than stores of 

 good qujuity. 



Proper food is of first importance, 

 and may consist of either honey or 

 sugar syrup, or both, and may or may 

 not, include bee-bread. If it is de- 

 sired to have brood-rearing going on 

 before the bees can gather pollen in 

 the spring, it must be included in the 

 winter stores. Many successful bee^ 

 keepers say they do not want their 

 bees to rear brood till they can gather 

 pollen from natural flowers in the 

 spring, but my own experience satis- 

 fies me that I can get a much larger 

 yield of honey from a colony that 

 commences to breed in January or 

 February than I can from one that 

 does not. 



Second only to proper food is the- 

 right temperature. This question then 

 would naturally arise, what is the 

 right temperature V I have had the 



