THE AMERICAI^ BEE JOURNAL. 



559 



The first subject called for discus- 

 sion, was " Wintering." 



The President said that the most 

 important matter is in the preparation 

 of bees, in the fall, for winter. They 

 should be let alone, and not disturbed. 

 Sometimes he shoveled snow around 

 the hives. 



Mr. Vandervort wintered his bees 

 on the summer stands with straw in 

 the caps, holes in the honey boards, 

 and the hives let down close to the 

 bottom boards, lie had one experi- 

 ence in wintering bees in the cellar. 

 The hives and combs came out, in the 

 spring, wet and moldy, and the bees 

 in bad condition. lie did not want 

 any more cellar wintering. 



Mr. Cox used cloth over two strips, 

 placed across the frames, with chaff 

 packing at the sides, and was success- 

 Mr. Butler put about one-half of 

 his bees in the cellar, and left the rest 

 on the summer stands two years ago ; 

 and in the spring those from the cellar 

 were moldy, and in very unsatisfac- 

 tory condition. Those outside were 

 in much better condition. Last win- 

 ter he packed 27 colonies in chaff, on 

 the summer stands, and they all came 

 through nicely. 



Geo. Poindexter was decidedly in 

 favor of cellar wintering ; he thought 

 the two essential points to success 

 were : " Put the bees in a frost proof 

 repository, and give plenty of upward 

 ventilation to allow the dampness to 

 escape from the bees.'' Last winter 

 he lost 3 colonies out of 200 so win- 

 tered. 



Mr. Cox found the moisture escaped 

 much better with 4 inches of chaff, 

 than twice that depth over the bees. 



President Wolcott used V4 inches 

 of sifted coal ashes over the bees with 

 satisfactory results. 



It was asked which was preferable- 

 passages over the frames or holes 

 through the combs ? The opinions 

 differed according to each one's ex- 

 perience. 



" On Marketing Honey," Jas. Poin- 

 dexter thought tliat honey put up in 

 two-pound packages could be pro- 

 duced at less figures, and suit regular 

 honey consumers as well as smaller 

 packages. Sections of two-pounds 

 each, holding 1,000 pounds of honey, 

 cost but little more than half as much 

 as one-pound size to hold the same 

 amount; less sizes required much 

 more handling, both for the producer 

 and retailer. That the cost of produc- 

 tion in small and fancy packages 

 would have the tendency to keep 

 honey regarded as a luxury, while in 

 larger and cheaper packages, it would 

 tend to make it a staple article, and 

 bring it into more general use. 



Mr. Cox had trouble in disposing of 

 honey in larger packages than one- 

 pound. 



Jas. Poindexter thought that de- 

 pended on the way grocerymen were 

 educated by bee-keepers. 



Mr. Fell asked if honey in combs, 

 placed on the top of the cloth, would 

 be removed by the bees for winter 

 use V Answered : If the weather is 

 warm, they would. 



" Do bees mark their location from 

 the color, or the surroundings V" Mr. 



Jordon transferred bees from an un- 

 painted box to a white hive. .In shak- 

 ing the bees in front of the new hive 

 on the old stand, they were loth to 

 enter, until a piece of tlie old hive was 

 placed in front and against the new 

 hive, when they entered readily, which 

 he thought indicated they were at- 

 tracted more by color than the hives 

 on either'side of the new one. 



Jas. Poindexter said that a part of 

 the hives that he had taken from the 

 cellar in the spring were closed ; after 

 the other hives were placed out, and 

 the entrance open, in a few minutes 

 the bees, in considerable numbers, 

 were noticed hovering around the 

 closed hives, 25 feet away, which 

 occupied the same relative position to 

 the trees as the one fresh put out ; 

 some of these hives were of different 

 colors. There were closed hives of 

 the same color on either side, much 

 nearer to the hive newly set out. He 

 thought that bees marked the sur- 

 roundings more than the color. 



Mr. Funk noticed that swarms 

 sometimes entered the wrong hive 

 when returning, entering a hive simi- 

 larly located to the one from which 

 they issued ; he was of the opinion 

 that the relative position of the hive 

 was marked more than the color ; all 

 his hives are painted white. 



" Which is preferable for honey, 

 black, hybrid or Italian bees?" An- 

 swered by Messrs. Funk and Keeran 

 in favor of hybrids. 



Adjourned to the second W^ednesday 

 in January, 1884, when the regular 

 aimual meeting of the association in 

 Bloomington will be held. 



Jas. Poindexter, Sec. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



Wintering— the Pollen Theory. 



DR. G. L. TINlvER. 



Since Mr. Heddon has given us to 

 understand that he has no "confi- 

 dence " either in his twin theories or 

 his little prophecy, there is little for 

 me to say in reply to his last article. 

 It is to be remembered, however, that 

 Mr. H. is a man of undoubted liberal 

 views — one who is ever ready to aban- 

 don anything that will not comport 

 with the evident facts of nature ; so 

 we find him saying, almost mechan- 

 ically, in " What and How :" " While 

 it may prove true that pollen-eating 

 may be the cause of dysentery, in 

 every case it may turn out a fact 

 that under most favorable conditions 

 bees ca?i consume bee-bread during 

 confinement and yet remain healthy." 

 The uprootingof cherished views finds 

 expression only in a lingering doubt 

 oti the last proposition. This is en- 

 couraging. The pollen theory must 

 go! 



Mr. Heddon intimates that I believe 

 the " bacteria theory " will account 

 for some of the cases of dysentery. 

 No; I have simply suggested it as a 

 more plausible one than the pollen 

 theory, and so applied it to the loss of 

 the 48 colonies alluded to. A very 

 reasonable hypothesis in the few iso- 

 lated cases that now and then occur 

 is to be found in the use of aphide 



honey. However, no one has been 

 able to give positive evidence that any 

 kind of nectar or sweet that the bees 

 naturally collect, such as cider, the 

 juices of various fruits, &c., may 

 cause dysentery. Of the unnatural 

 agents, it is well known that chemical 

 glucose will kill bees if wintered upon 

 it, probably by a poisonous action. 



Thus, we have gone over the proba- 

 ble and improbable causes of bee- 

 dysentery, and the preponderance of 

 evidence rests with the humidity the- 

 ory ; or in other words, that dampness 

 in the hive, conjoined with a low tem- 

 perature, is the probable cause. This 

 is no new statement of the theory, as 

 Mr. H. would infer. It was assumed 

 from the first that dampness and cold 

 were co-operative causes ; not by in- 

 ducing an inflammatory state of the in- 

 testines, or even perhaps an irritation, 

 but by causing an interference with 

 the exhalations of the bees through 

 the act of respiration, resulting in an 

 accumulation of liquid in the intes- 

 tines that under more favorable con- 

 ditions would have escaped by 

 the breath in the form of aqueous 

 vapor. 



The remaining question between 

 Mr. Ileddon and myself is in regard to 

 the proper size of the brood and sur- 

 plus department of the hive in 

 winter. His experience that 8 Lang- 

 stroth frames are safer to winter 

 upon than 10, is no doubt correct. 

 But I consider that to leave even 8 

 frames in the hive would be unsafe in 

 a very hard winter. Better by far to 

 reduce the number to 4 or 5. My 

 choice of the standard L. hive in 

 preference to a very narrow one was 

 with this view; since, by placing a div- 

 ision board each side of the 4 or 5 

 frames, there is room left to put 

 at least 3 inches of loose chaff on each 

 side, and in the cap to place a large 

 cushion. But with Mr. Ileddon's hive 

 there is not room for sutticient pack- 

 ing dose up to the bees. This want of 

 space Mr. H. would make up by a 

 cumbrous outside case holding 6,000 

 cubic inches. Beyond question if a 

 colony in an 8 frame hive were put in 

 such a case it would be far less safe 

 than inthestandard L. hive, prepared 

 as above, with no outside case at all. 



I believe that with a long, shallow 

 frame there is no real necessity for 

 double casing of the hive at the ends 

 of the frames; hence, my statement 

 that so much " fixing" would not pay. 

 No reference was made, or even 

 thought of, to Mr. Ileddon's hive iu 

 the production ot comb honey. That 

 would have been too great a diversion 

 to appear under the heading of these 

 articles. 



As for out-of-door wintering in an 8 

 frame hive, doubtless Mr. Grimm 

 would have no better success than Mr. 

 Heddon has had. The latter, therefore, 

 gets credit for making the best possi- 

 ble use of a hive unsuited to success- 

 ful wintering on the summer stand. 

 In an article on page 7 of the Bee 

 Journal, present volume, I stated 

 that Mr. Ileddon's method of winter- 

 ing was " very doubtful " as compared 

 with the others given, and, in a letter 

 to Mr. Doolittle about the same time, 

 predicted that lie would meet with 



