PUBLISHED EVERY WEEK 



AT $1.00 PER ANNUM. 



35tli Year. 



CHICAGO, ILL., FEBRUARY 7, 1895. 



No. 6. 



Cotjtributed /Kriiclcs^ 



On Iinportaat Apiarian Subjects, 



Cellar Wiutering with Chaff Hives. 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Not long ago, a bee-keeper called and requested that he 

 be allowed to go into the bee-cellar to see how the bees were 

 wintering in there. Upon looking around and seeing many of 

 the colonies having masses of bees hanging below the combs, 

 similar to a swarm in summer, he was surprised, and seeing 

 that most of the hives in the cellar were chaff-packed, he 

 wished to know if I did not think that the bees were protected 

 too much in these hives. I said " no." He seemed to think 

 that having bees in chaff hives when wintering in the cellar, 

 was very much like a man keeping his overcoat on when in 

 the house, thus inferring that the bees were too warm, and 

 that this was the reason they hung down below the combs so, 

 yet he was compelled to admit that he never saw bees as 

 quiet, when in the cellar, as were these very bees he was look- 

 ing at. My idea of the matter used to be the same as his, un- 

 til I began to experiment to find out the truth. After these 

 experiments I am prepared to say that bees will winter better 

 in the cellar if in chaff hives, than they will in single-walled 

 hives, providing they are fixed as they should be in the cellar. 

 The experiments conducted were as follows : 



One season, several years ago, I had some quite weak 

 colonies, formed by uniting nuclei late in the fall. They were 

 in chaff hives, as I had intended to winter them out-doors ; but 

 after all the rest of the bees were in the cellar, which I had 

 intended to put in, I found that there was considerable room 

 left in the cellar, so I decided to try a part of these small colo- 

 nies in chaff hives, by putting them in the room left, for I 

 feared they would not go through the winter where they were. 

 Accordingly, I put some six or seven of them in, two of which 

 were placed in the cellar just as they stood out-doors— i. c, the 

 bottom-board, cap, and chaff or sawdust cushion were all car- 

 ried into the cellar, with no means provided for ventilating 

 the hives, save what air would go in and out at the entrance. 

 Two others were left the same as out-doors, save that the cap 

 or hood was left on the summer stands. The remaining ones 

 were raised from the bottom-board some three or four inches, 

 by way of putting two sticks of ordinary stove-wood between 

 the bottom of the hive and the bottom-board, one on either 

 end of the hive, the cap being left out-doors the same as the 

 last. 



That the reader may better understand, I will say the 

 chaff, or tine straw (I prefer the latter), is about four inches 

 thick on all sides of the hive, while over the tops of the frames 

 I use two thicknesses of common cotton-cloth, preferring that 

 these pieces of cotton-cloth be free from propolis, although not 

 all of them are so. Over these pieces of cotton-cloth I used a 

 sawdust cushion, which is nearly as large as the whole top of 

 the hive, this cushion coming out well over the straw on all 

 sides, thus making it impossible for a current of air to pass 

 rapidly through the hive, or for the bees to get above the cot- 

 ton-cloth out into the tops of the hive, or into the hive above. 

 This sawdust cushion is of about the thickness of the straw at 

 the sides, and being of fine, dry, basswood sawdust, it is capa- 

 ble of absorbing nearly its bulk of moisture before it becomes 

 wet to any appreciable extent. 



Now for the result: On putting the bees out in the spring, 

 I found both of those dead which were put into the cellar the 

 same as they would have been had they been left out-doors ; 

 one dead and the other weak in condition, of those which had 

 only the entrance of the hive for ventilation, but had the cap 

 left off : while those raised from the bottom-board on sticks of 

 stove-wood were apparently in as good condition as they were 

 when put into the cellar the fall previous. Seeing the success 

 attained by these last, I thereafter commenced to put more 

 colonies which were in chaff hives into the cellar, so that the 

 present time finds % of all my bees in chaff hives, "i of which 

 are in the cellar, all raised at the bottom and fixed as above. 



O. M. DooliUle. Borodino, N. Y. 



I have just been in to see them, so that I might tell the reader 

 the difference between these and those in single-walled hives. 

 Those in the single-walled hives are clustered closely on all 

 parts of the cluster, bottom, top and sides, the same as they 

 would be out-doors, only not quite so completely ; while those 

 in the chaff hives are clustered just as closely as the others at 

 the bottom of the cluster, and a little way up the sides ; but 

 as you come toward the upper half of the colony, the bees 

 stand out around on the combs the same as they would iu 

 summer, while at the top, all along next to the cushion and 

 cotton-cloth, they make no pretension at clustering whatever, 

 although you can look at them a long time without any of 

 them stirring, no matter how close you hold the light to the 

 hive. In this way they have free acc^s to all parts of the 

 hive, so a colony never starves, as long as there is any honey 

 in the hive, by their eating the honey from one side and fail- 

 ing to move over, as is frequently the case. 



But the greatest item of the whole is, that these colonies 

 in chaff hives do not consume nearly as much honey as do 



