102 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Pel. 17, 



of comb and 2,000 of extracted. I don't know how much 

 more there is. 



Dr. Besse — 60 colonies in the spring, increast to 122, and 

 1 took off a little over 3,000 pounds of comb honey, and 

 about that much extracted. 



Mr. Baxter — About 250 colonies in the spring, and took 

 about 40 barrels of honey for my share, the barrels averaging 

 about 575 pounds net, making In the neigbborhood of 22,000 

 pounds of extracted honey ; and abjut 500 pounds of comb 

 honey. I had four yards, and gave one-fifth of the three 

 yards for the privilege of keeping the bees ; that would be 

 about five barrels for their share. Then I have 15 colonies of 

 my mother's in the same yard, which I take care of for her 

 and give her all the honey, and she got two barrels. 



Mr. Norris — 10 colonies in the spring, 14 now, and 

 about 500 pounds of comb honey. 



Mr. Whitcomb — Started in the spring with 12, increast 

 to 30, and have 1,500 pounds of extracted honey, besides 

 oOO of comb. 



Mr. Finch— Started with 15 colonies in the spring, in- 

 creast to -45, and have now about 600 pounds of honey, half 

 extracted and half comb. 



Mr. Karti'h — I had 10 colonies, spring count. I got them 

 a little late, so I was a little slow in getting to work. I in- 

 creast them to 20, and I have taken off about 300 pounds of 

 honey. 



Mr. Schaper — About 50 colonies in the spring, now about 

 85, and I took 2,000 pounds of hooey, 500 of it being comb. 



Mr. Nau— About 12 or 14 in spring, 18 or 20 now, and 

 took about 500 pounds of comb honey. 



Pres. Miller— 239 colonies, spring count, 295 now, and I 

 .took a little over 17,000 pounds of comb honey, with perhaps 

 300 of extracted. 



LContinued next week.l 



CONDCCTBD BY 



DR. O. O. MILLER, MARENGO, ILL. 



[Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal, or to Dr. Miller direct.] 



Ilive-Veiililalion in Winter. 



My bees are in original Langstroth hives, with wooden 

 honey-board and tight bottoms. I fiave opened all holes in 

 the honey-board, and packt with chaff cushions on top, mak- 

 ing them air-tight on top. How much ventilation should they 

 have at the entrance ? Virginia. 



Answer. — The tendency nowadays is toward a good deal. 

 The stronger the colony the more they need. Perhaps the 

 whole width of the hive by one-half inch Is none too much, 

 keeping watch that the entrance isn't clogged. 



Bee§ in a New Bee-Cellar. 



I built a bee-house or bee-cellar by digging in the ground 

 8j-i feet, and then built a wall Hi feet high. The cellar is 

 10x14 feet. I set two rows of posts through the center and 

 made a roof of green oak poles, then put on straw and then 

 dirt, then straw and then dirt, with a 6-inch hole for ventila- 

 tion. The doors are so arranged as to be double. The mer- 

 cury stood about 45 J the first part of the winter. The green 

 timber began to mold, and the mercury went down to 40-. I 

 then closed the ventilator, but was afraid to leave it closed on 

 account of the mold. I see some mold in the front of some of 

 the hives. 



I put 6-inch scantling on the ground edgewise to keep the 

 bees off the ground. I left the hive tops and bottoms on. This 

 wall was green, laid up late in the fall, so it did not get a 

 chance to dry out, and the poles were green. I had a stove in 

 there for two or three weeks. I had it pretty well dried out. 

 The mercury stands at 38- now. Do you think the bees are 

 all right? It not, what can I do to help them? I have 40 

 colonies in the cellar. I had a heavy loss last year in winter- 

 inK- Iowa. 



Answer. — Very likely you are doing about as well as you 

 ca_n. The best thing will be to repeat the fire if it g;oes below 

 45-' much, unless indeed there should be something objec- 



jectionable about the way the fire is managed. Of course it 

 will not do to have a fire without a pipe to carry the smoke 

 clear out of the cellar, not even as some think allowable, if 

 an oil or gasoline stove is used, 38- is too low, and it will 

 probably do no harm to start a fire whenever it gets down to 

 40^. Still, 40- is not so very bad if not continued too long, 

 and it is just possible you may find it all right, for there is a 

 great variation in thermometers. The best test is to see 

 whether the bees are very quiet. That temperature is the 

 best for them at which they make the least noise. 



Don't Disturb the Bees — Section-Cleaner. 



Last fall my bees had plenty of stores for winter. I packt 

 them with one foot of straw and planer chips on top, bottom 

 and sides. There are 34 colonies in one row, with o-inch 

 space between each colony. I am afraid they are too warm, 

 and have used up their stores rearing brood. I send you a 

 sample of bees which I think is this year's rearing. If so, will 

 I have to feed them before warm weather? The bees I send 

 you Hew out and died on the snow. 



Tell Mr. Golden to put a cushion of felt between the 

 wheel and the sand-paper on his section-cleaner, and it will 

 work nicer. It will make the section ride smooth. He can 

 glue each succeeding piece of sand-paper on without taking' 

 the old one off. 



Did you ever try drying out your bee-cellar with the heat 

 of a good stove, and then let It cool down to the right temper- 

 ature just previous to putting the bees in ? 



Wisconsin. 



Answer. — I think the bees you send were reared last sum- 

 mer or fall, and I don't believe you need worry. Probably the 

 best thing you can do is to let your bees severely alone till 

 weather comes warm enough for them to fly nearly every day. 

 It is barely possible some of them may not have stores 

 enough to last till that time, but I'd take the chance rather 

 than do the mischief of disturbing them. 



How orten to Open Hive§— Winter Packing^, 



1. How often should the body of the hive be opened to see- 

 that all is going right when we have both time and Inclination 

 to give our bees first-class care, commencing with February 

 and ending with the packing for winter ? 



Out of 10 swarms I had three that became queenless in 

 the spring or early summer. I soon knew of it, and remedied 

 the evil. A friend told rae that I fust with my bees too much, 

 and suggested that I killed the three queens in handling the 

 frames, but I always tried to be very careful. 



2. I would like to have your judgment on the way I packb 

 my bees for winter. If it is advisable, it is a way farmers 

 can easily do : 



I use the 8-frame Langstroth dovetail hive. I work mostly 

 for extracted honey. The super is the same size as the body. 

 In the fall I lookt through the hives, and if any contained less 

 than 25 pounds of honey, I fed up to that amount, then as 

 there is a bee-space between the tops of the brood-frames and 

 the queen-excluders, I left the excluders on several of the 

 hives, and took out the excluders and put Hill devices on se.v- 

 eral others for experiment. Then, as I left shallow frames on 

 one hive last winter, and that colony commenced work in the 

 spring earlier than those with the Hill devices on, I left two 

 with shallow frames on this winter. Then I put a large 

 empty super on each hive, including the two that I had 

 already put on shallow supers of frames. I took a gunny- 

 sack for each super, and put enough dry leaves into it so that 

 when it was prest down in the deep super It would fill it about 

 half full. Then I put on the covers. 



My hives are on the summer stands, fronting south, all in 

 a straight row. For outside protection I laid corn-fodder 

 down straight on the ground behind them, piling it up about 

 to the tops of the supers ; then I took a six-inch fence-board 

 and nailed sharpened stakes near each end, and drove the 

 stakes into the ground, so that the board came against the 

 front ends of the hive-bodies, covering a large portion of the 

 upper part of them. I then filled the spaces between the 

 hives with old hay. With the corn-fodder behind and the 

 board in front, I could pack the hay in very nicely, and filled 

 it in nearly to the tops of the supers. For ventilation I left 

 the entrance entirely open, full width of the hive. 



I wish to know which of the ways I packt the cushions 

 over the tops of the bees is the best; oris there some way. 

 better than either of them ? 



I wish also to know what you think of my method of out 



