THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



213 



back end of the new hive, but the 

 front turned to one side at an an^le of 

 perhaps 4-5^ . The honey boxes remove 

 from the old to the new hive. Each 

 day slightly move the old hive until 

 at "the end of o or G days it would be 

 standing elose bv and paralli'l with 

 the new hive. At about the seventh 

 dav remove the old hive to a new loca- 

 tion, when all the flying; bees would 

 return to the old location and enter 

 the new hive ; thus '•• booming " the 

 new colony, where are the section 

 boxes, and so reducing the numbers 

 in the old hive at the time when the 

 the queens are hatching, that all 

 thoughts of swarming would be re 

 linqiiished. If the honey harvest con- 

 tiiuied when the young queen began 

 to lay, I would put a case of sections 

 upon" the old hive. With this system 

 or management there is no opening of 

 hives, no hunting for and cutting out 

 of queen-cells, no fussing and bother ; 

 and, in my experience, only about one 

 colony in 25 has cast an after swarm. 



D. York : I practice putting a 

 swarm into a hive from which a 

 swarm has issued a day or more pre- 

 vious ; there is then spent that energy 

 that a new swarm always has in stor- 

 ing honey in the boxes. 



W. Z. llutchinson : Some who have 

 tried Mr. York's method say that the 

 ■bees swarm out again in a few days, 

 but if they do not, there is no In- 

 crease, and in my opinion increase is 

 desirable. "When we start out in the 

 spring with our apiary in such a con- 

 dition that increase is undesirable, we 

 show a lack of business management 

 or ability. I secure more honey from 

 a colonyand its increase, that swarms, 

 than I do from a colony that does not 

 swarm, and I have the increase into 

 the bargain. Again, I say, why pre- 

 vent increase ? 



Question : '• How to tell from which 

 hive a swarm has issued V 



Mrs. Wright: When we see a swarm 

 clustered, and do not know which hive 

 it came from, how can we ascertain V 



President ^'an Patten : l>y noticing 

 that the bees are not "hanging out "" 

 at some hive, that there are but few 

 bees going out and in, and by looking 

 into the boxes and noting the absence 

 of bees. 



D. York : After a swarm has been 

 hived, there are a few bees that will 

 " cluster ■■ again, watch these ■' strag- 

 glers "and see into which hive they 

 go ; that is the hive from which the 

 swarm came. 



W. Z. Hutchinson : We do not al- 

 low our bees to "hang out." neither 

 is there time in a large apiary to go 

 around and examine all the surplus 

 departments, nor to wait to see where 

 the " stragglers " go. I wish I knew 

 of some quick, reliable method of de- 

 termining from which hive a swarm 

 has issued. We usually have some 

 one in or near the apiary during 

 swarming hours, but occasionally a 

 swarm manages to hang itself up un- 

 observed, and the best that we can do, 

 on short notice, is to note the absence 

 of bees going out and in at some hive, 

 look upon the ground in front of the 

 hive for young bees that are too young 

 to fly, but have attempted to go with 

 the swarm, then if the indications are 



favorable, take a " peep " into the 

 honev boxes, liv opening the hive, 

 of co'urse all doubts can usually be set 

 at rest. 



(Question : " Arc old combs better 

 than new ones for wintering bees ?" 



AV. Z. Hutchinson : 1 have given 

 fonndationto colonies in the fall, fed 

 sugar and had tlie foundation drawn 

 out and lilted with the sngar, and the 

 bees wintered as well as those having 

 old combs. Old combs often contain i 

 old stores, and when the bees winter | 

 better than upon new combs having i 

 new stores, the success has been attri- 

 buted to the age of the combs. 



D. York : 1 have hived swarms 

 upon old, empty combs, and allowed 

 other swarms " to build their own 

 combs, and the swarms having the 

 old combs wintered best. 



Question : " How to winter bees ?" 



Noble York : I have tried different 

 methods, but consider an equable tem- 

 perature of great importance. 



The President : My bees out-of- 

 doors have suffered this winter se- 

 verely ; the bees in the cellars, too, 

 have suffered. I have lost 30 colonies, 

 mostlv from those out-of-doors. Last 

 fall I " buried Ki colonies ; a few days 

 ago I feared that w-ater was getting 

 in, and I dug them out. Two colonies 

 were dead, but the remainder were in 

 flne condition. 



A. Haines : I have wintered bees 

 by burying them in clamps. I did not 

 take them out until soft maple was in 

 bloom. They came through all right. 



Geo. Gunnell : Several years ago I 

 wintered a small colony by burying it 

 4 feet deep in the sand. I stood some 

 barrel staves up around the hive, put 

 straw around them, and then shoveled 

 on the earth. 



M. D. York : Although the char- 

 acter of the food may have much to 

 do with the success of wintering, I 

 think that outside influences play an 

 important part. The breath of the 

 bees, aided by the alternate freezing 

 and thawing," wet the combs and lead 

 to dysentery. 



W. Z. Hutchinson : What kills our 

 bees in winter ? Do they starve to 

 death ? Not often. Do they smother V 

 Seldom, if ever. Do they freeze to 

 death V It is possdjle that occasion- 

 ally a weak colony does, but it does 

 not occur very often. Is it not the so- 

 called dysentery that causes nine- 

 tenths of the "losses '? If we could 

 prevent dysentery, what would the 

 other losses amount to V One man 

 thinks it cold that causes it, and he 

 builds a frost-proof cellar in which 

 to winter liis bees. All goes well for 

 a few years, and then comes a spring 

 when he carries from his cellar hive 

 after hive containing nothing except 

 dead bees and soiled, ill-smelUug 

 combs. The cold theory is dropped. 

 If this man has a neighbor vv-hose 

 hives were well ventilated, and whose 

 bees wintered well, even if they were 

 out-of-doors, he probably adopts and 

 adheres to the ventilation theory until 

 there comes a winter when his neigh- 

 bor's bees die and his own live, when 

 he drops it for something else. 



Bees have passed the severest win- 

 ters unprotected and came through 

 perfectly healthy ; under similar cir- 



cumstances, in another winter, they 

 have died before the winter is lialf 

 over. Hees have been wintered in 

 dry warm cellars, and in other win- 

 ters they have died in the same cel- 

 lars. They have lived and again they 

 have died in damp cellars. These 

 statements aiipcar to be conllicting, 

 and also discouraging, but they are 

 facts, why ignm-e them ? It is only 

 upon one" hypothesis that I can .ex- 

 plain these apparently conflicting 

 statements, and that is "that the pri- 

 mary cause of the so called dysentery 

 is improper food. 



Honey is not a chemically pure 

 sweet. It is sometimes gathered from 

 cracked or decaying fruit, from cider 

 mills, from the" secretions of plant 

 lice, and is almost more or less com- 

 posed of vegetable matter, floating 

 grains of pollen, for instance. To 

 sustain life and keep up the animal 

 heat, bees eat food ; in time the in- 

 testines become over-loaded with 

 fecal matter, and if the confinement 

 is continued long enough the contents 

 of the intestines are discharged in the 

 hive. The less vegetable matter in 

 the honey the longer confinement the 

 bees can bear. Just so far, protection 

 lessens the consumption of food, just 

 so much it prevents dysentery ; as the 

 less food consumed the longer can 

 confinement be borne. Let us sup- 

 pose that the honey of one season is 

 largely composed of vegetable matter, 

 and the combs well tilled with pollen, 

 and the winter that follows is un- 

 usually severe. Bees in cellars and 

 clamps will snffer, and many will die 

 from dysentery ; those out-of-doors 

 will be almost entirely swept away, 

 and the universal verdict is in favor 

 of cellars. Let us suppose that the 

 winter had been an " open " one, the 

 bees in the cellars would bavesutfered 

 just the same as before, while those 

 out-of-doors, having enjoyed frequent 

 flights, would have come through in a 

 healthy condition. Let us suppose 

 that a long, cold winter should follow 

 a season when the honey was of an 

 excellent character. The bees in 

 doors would suffer but little if any 

 from dysentery, while those out of- 

 doors might siiffer to some extent. 

 Now, if the winter had been warm, 

 the bees in cellars would have win- 

 tered just the same, while those out- 

 of-doors would have remained entirely 

 free from it. 



Unfortunately we have no practical 

 means of determining whether or not 

 honey is fit for winter food, and the 

 only "thing that remains for us to do is 

 to remove the honey in the fall and 

 substitute for it a food of whose fit- 

 ness as a winter food we are assured. 

 Such a food we have in cane sugar. It 

 is a better winter food than even the 

 best of honey. Its heat producing 

 qualities are very much greater, while 

 the residue left, after digestion, is al- 

 most nothing. I have conducted ex- 

 periments for several years with gran- 

 ulated sugar for winter stores, and I 

 am convinced of its superiority. I 

 have had every colony out-of-doors 

 die of dvsentery excepttliosethat had 

 sugar stores, i have had two-thirds 

 of the colonies in my cellars perish 

 with dysentery ; the third that sur- 



