,THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



249 



would rather tor it to rise above 6(P 

 than fall below 40"'. Below 40^ means 

 dysentery or death, in my experience. 

 The cellifl- is always kept perfectly 

 dark ; and the bees are never dis- 

 turbed unless it becomes absolutely 

 necessary. 



To ventilate the cellar, there is a 

 tin pipe 4 inches in diameter, extend- 

 ing from near the bottom of the cellar 

 to near the point where the pipe from 

 the sitting room stove enters the 

 chimney, and there euters the chim- 

 ney. The tin pipe is made air-tight 

 through its whole length, and air- 

 tight where it enters the chimney, so 

 also is the stove-pipe ; so that when 

 ever there is a tire in the stove there 

 is a heavy draft out of the cellar, and 

 we always keep a fire in the stove 

 when the bees are in. I consider this 

 draft an essential condition. 



My last improvement in letting air 

 into the cellar, is a box made of four 

 boards, 16 feet long and 12 inches 

 wide, nicely made so as to be water- 

 tight, with both ends open. This 

 forms a pipe 10x12 inches inside. One 

 end of this pipe is fitted into a window 

 so as to admit no light. The other 

 end extends 16 feet into the cellar, 

 and is raised about a foot higher than 

 the end in the window, so as to carry 

 all the water from the melting ice out 

 of the window. At the outer end of 

 this pipe there is a gate by which it 

 can be partly or wholly closed at pleas- 

 ure. Whenever the weather is warm, 

 this pipe is filled nearly full of ice or 

 snow its whole length, so that all the 

 air that enters the cellar comes over 

 and among blocks of ice for 16 feet, 

 which affects its temperature materi- 

 ally. Over the inner end of this pipe 

 I hang a black curtain to exclude all 

 light. 



I have often contemplated the feasi- 

 bility of a sub-earth pipe to act in 

 conjunction with the ice pipe, so as to 

 let the air through either at pleasure. 

 I think it would make a perfect ar- 

 rangement, but have never tried it for 

 want of strength to dig or means to 

 hire. With my present arrangement 

 I have no trouble unless I neglect 

 some of the following rules : 



1. Keep the bees breeding late in 

 the fall, by feeding if necessary, and 

 have them well cushioned, the en- 

 trance partly closed, and otherwise 

 kept warm. 



2. Put them into the cellar early, 

 before any frost gathers on the honey, 

 to crack the cappings. 



3. Watch very carefully, and never 

 let the thermometer sink to 40° (it 

 had much better never come below 

 44°), and never let it rise above 50-'. 



To cool off the cellar, when the 

 weather outside is colder than 40°, let 

 in as little air as will keep the bees 

 alive, and keep ice in the pipe. When 

 the cellar gets too cold, shut off the 

 air, and, if necessary, carry in a kettle 

 of coals from the stove. This last is 

 a good practice, whenever it can be 

 done and not make the cellar too 

 warm . 



4. Never take the bees out until 

 they can get pollen, unless it is for a 

 flight, and then put them back the 

 same day. I never take mine out un- 

 less they get the dysentery, and then 



only the sick ones, and have never 

 done that but a few times, with a few. 



5. Exercise good common sense, 

 and you will have no trouble. 



I have now 131 colonies in the cellar 

 and two nuclei. They were put in 

 Nov. 1.S ; and, up to this date, they 

 have not made any noise that could 

 be heard 10 feet from the hive, ex- 

 cepting one colony, which was inad- 

 vertantly set under the ingress pipe, 

 where the cold air fell almost directly 

 on it, and they took the dysentery 

 early, and I tried the carbolic acid 

 and sugar ; it seemed to check it for a 

 time, but they are noisy again, and I 

 shall give them a flight the first warm 

 day. All the rest are in fine condi- 

 tion, thus far. The thermometer 

 marks 48° this evening, and all is 

 quiet along the whole line. 



I will close by saying to all the wise 

 ones, that, in my opinion, if their bees 

 never get any sour honey, they will 

 never have dysentery ; and I do not 

 care how much pollen they have, 

 either. If any doubt my statement or 

 opinion, let them carefully examine 

 every hive that has the disease, and 

 see if they do not find sour honey, if 

 they find any. Mind another thing, if 

 in cellar ; the honey outside the clus- 

 ter gets cold enough to condense the 

 breath of the bees ; thai honey will 

 almost always sour, more or less, and 

 give dysentery. 

 Mauston, Wis., March 17, 1883. 



The question is often asked, " Will 

 it pay to use foundation at present 

 prices." I answer yes— in an ordinary 

 season it will pay to use it even at a 

 cost of SI per pound, or to use wired 

 frames filled with it, even if they cost 

 2.5 cents each. I have proven it by 

 actual experiments in my own apiary. 



In thanking you for the unexpected 

 honor of being elected president of 

 this association, allow me to express 

 the hope that our present meeting 

 may be pleasant and profitable to us 

 all. 



The members made individual re- 

 port on wintering, as follows : 



Western Missouri Convention. 



The Western Bee- Keepers' Conven 

 tion was held at Independence, Mo., 

 April 28. Jas. A. Nelson, of Wyau- 

 dott, Kans., president, on taking the 



Gentlemen -.—I am glad to meet 

 so many bee-keepers on the present 

 occasion. I have nothing of special 

 importance to offer, but think the 

 wintering problem deserves attention, 

 and will give you some items of my 

 own experience. 



I put into winter quarters 66 colo- 

 nies on the summer stands, all but 11 

 of them in Langstroth hives, and 

 nearly all of them had chaff cushions, 

 6 or 8 inches thick in the upper stories; 

 I have lost 8 colonies in all, 3 in Lang- 

 stroth hives, and 5 in hives having 

 deeper frames. A few weak ones are 

 stillamong them, and since the first 

 of April, some of the strongest colo- 

 nies have dwindled, and one has 

 superseded the queen. The young 

 queen was fertilized and laying on the 

 20th inst. 



Another matter— small, it may be, 

 but bee-keeping is made up of small 

 matters. I notice that many persons 

 do not save the bits of comb which are 

 necessarily made, about an apiary. 

 The demand for beeswax is great and 

 increasing, and it behooves us all to 

 save and produce all we possibly can. 

 It is no great trouble with a wax ex- 

 tractor to place the bits of comb into 

 it, and when once full, to heat it and 

 let the wax run into a pan placed to 

 hold it. A wax extractor will soon 

 pay for itself in the amount of wax 

 that might otherwise be allowed to go 

 to waste. 



Mr. S. W. Salisbury, secretary of 

 the convention, read the following 

 paper : 

 Mr. President and Members of the 



Western Bee-Keepers' Association : 



On fixing the time for our semi- 

 annual meeting, which has now ar- 

 rived, our members generally shared 

 the desire to learn from each other 

 how their bees had passed the winter, 

 aud how well prepared they were for 

 active summer work. 



In this latitude 1 am confident that 

 bees winter best on their summer 

 stands, especially if they are protected 

 with a mat or quilt over their frames, 

 or with a piece of burlap or carpeting 

 that will keep the chaff or leaves, 

 which should half fill the upper story, 

 from getting between the frames. 

 They must, however, in any situation 

 have plenty of food, and I am confi- 

 dent that 20 pounds of honey is the 

 least possible amount that will safely 

 bring a colony through winter and the 

 flisttwo months of spring. Where 

 bees can have an opportunity to lly 

 every month, and gerierally several 

 days during each month, as they us- 

 ually do in this latitude, I think it 

 must be obvious that bees will suffer 

 less by natural frosts than by confine- 

 ment in a cellar. 



But an unusually severe winter, 

 with long continued cold, will neces- 

 sarily produce damaging effects upon 

 bees on their summer stands. Let 

 the thermometer stand at zero, or 

 thereabouts, for two weeks at a single 

 time, and chaff hives are insufticient 

 protection. Let this cold be contin- 

 ued for 30 or 40 days without inter- 

 ruption, and every colony must suffer, 

 while a large percentage will be 

 ruined. An occasional mild day, 

 whicli, without inducing bees to fly, 

 enables them to move among the 

 frames and replenish their stores for 



