1895. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



477 



Catjadiat) Beedor9^ 



Preparation of Bees for Winter. 



It is not any too early in this part of the world to begin 

 planning and arranging for next winter. Whether the bees 

 are to be wintered in the cellar or on the summer stands, the 

 first and most important matter to be looked after is the sup- 

 ply of stores. Whenever there is feeding to be done, it should 

 be done early. Generally speaking, the advice is to feed dur- 

 ing the month of September. I feel sure that this is not good 

 advice. Even though the weather is warm enough to admit 

 of the bees accepting and storing what is fed to them, be it 

 honey or sugar syrup, one very important advantage of feed- 

 ing is lost by deferring so late, and that is the rearing of brood 

 well into the fall. Bees are more provident and sagacious in 

 this matter than human beings. They will not goon and rear 

 a lot of young if the food-supply is short. So in order that a 

 colony may go into winter quarters strong in young bees, feed- 

 ing must be done early enough for brood to be reared and 

 matured in vigor before the advent of cold weather. Even 

 when September is a good feeding month, there is not time for 

 a force of workers to be properly nurtured before chilly 

 weather begins to induce the semi-torpor which is the first 

 stage of the bees' own preparation for winter. 



Dr. Gallup is quite right in saying on this point (page 

 438) that if September is a good working month only a few of 

 the bees reared in August will be alive the end of April. 

 This applies to localities further south, where there is a good 

 fall flow of honey, but there are few sections in Canada where 

 there is any appreciable honey harvest in the fall of the year. 

 Practically, the honey season is over with us by the end of 

 •fuly. There are a few localities, where buckwheat is raised, 

 in which this remark does not hold good. But, for the most 

 part, honey-gathering ceases by the end of July. On the fail- 

 ure of out-door supplies the bees intimate in some way to the 

 queen that there must be no more increase in the family, and 

 gradually egg-laying comes to a stop. If the hive is well 

 stocked both with brood and stores, there iS a subsidence of 

 activity and a cessation of brood-rearing. By the middle or 

 -end of August all the young brood is matured and in full 

 strength, having had enough field exercise to develop, 

 without wearing out their normal powers of flight and work. 

 Then as the nights begin to get chilly, and bad weather occa- 

 sionally prevails, the bees become quiet, glide into inaction, 

 and compose themselves for their long sleep, if sleep it be, or 

 for that condition of wakeful lethargy which is favorable for 

 wintering in the best possible manner. If this is a correct 

 statement of the case for Canadian beedom, it follows that 

 September is too late for feeding to be done to the best advan- 

 tage. 



I would rather counsel bee-keepers to ascertain the condi- 

 tion of their colonies as to winter stores at the close of their 

 honey season, whenever that is, and do their feeding forth- 

 with. I am inclined to think that the fierce and eager craving 

 for stores which leads to bees pestering housekeepers in fruit- 

 preserving time arises from a sense of the food-supply being 

 insufficient, and is really a frantic and desperate effort to 

 make up the deficiency of which they are conscious. During 

 the honey season, when there is a copious flow of nectar, 

 housekeepers are not thus annoyed. So of robbing. There is 

 none of it when there is plenty of nectar throughout " all out- 

 doors." Bees are less inclined to rob when feeding is put off 

 until September. So also are they less likely to take down 

 and store syrup. It is very easy to institute precautions 

 against robbing, by feeding only in the evening, and using 

 wire-cloth at the entrances of the hives to give ventilation 

 without leaving more than a single bee-space or so during the 

 daytime. It is every way better to feed early, thus calming 

 the anxiety of the bees for more stores, and giving the bee- 

 keeper the satisfaction of knowing, in good time, that his bees 

 are "ready, aye ready " for their winter ordeal. 



There will be a large amount of feeding required the pres- 

 ent season if bees are to be preserved alive. It is the height 

 of cruelty to let any colonies die of hunger. If a bee-keeper 

 has more colonies than he can afford to feed, he should select 

 as many of the best as he can support in comfort, and sulphur 

 the rest. Suffocation with brimstone is an easy method of dy- 

 ing. The bees are gradually stupefied into a sleep that knows 

 no waking. But death by starvation is a barbarity from 

 which every humane mind shrinks. I do not believe with 

 Cowper, that the poor beetle we tread upon, 



" in corporeal suffering feels as great a pang 

 As when a giant dies/' 



Neither do I think that it is as horrible a thing for a bee to 

 starve to death as it is for a human being to suffer that fate, 

 but if a colony cannot be fed and kept in comfort, by all 

 means let it be brimstoned forthwith and put out of its 

 misery. 



I make the suggestion for what it is worth, that it might 

 be well for those who have more colonies than they can afford 

 to feed, to advertise them at cheap rates, explaining to buyers 

 that they will need feeding, that they have only stores enough 

 to last a little while, but that they may be readily fed up so as 

 to winter safely, and come out in strong condition next spring. 

 At the present low price of sugar, it will pay one who wishes 

 to get cheaply into bee-keeping, to buy some weak colonies 

 and feed them up, say at a dollar per colony. Of course it 

 would be better for the bee-keeper himself to spend that much 

 in prolonging the lives of his bees, if he can find a way of 

 doing it. 



UPWARD VENTILATION AND SEALED COVERS. 



I shall only add at this time a few words on upward ven- 

 tilation and sealed covers. I do not pin my faith absolutely 

 to either. A very small amount of upward ventilation ap- 

 pears to be quite harmless and perhaps beneficial. But much 

 of it makes the bees more or less uneasy, increases the con- 

 sumption of food and adds to the accumulation of feces. 

 Sealed covers, on the other hand, lead to condensation of 

 moisture to such an extent that it often drips from the en- 

 trance, if the fioor of the hive inclines outward, or accumu- 

 lates on the bottom-board, if the inclination is the other way. 

 If sharp, freezing weather comes when this moist condition of 

 things exists, the walls of the hive, outer combs and floor will 

 become icy, giving the bees chilling surroundings, that cannot 

 but be most detrimental to them. I have settled down for my 

 own part on using a woolen blanket or carpet cover, and on 

 top of it porous and absorbent material, such as old news- 

 papers and pamphlets, or sawdust, chaff, cut straw and forest 

 leaves. The woolen material next the bees conveys the mois- 

 ture to the other side of the piece of blanket or carpet, where 

 contact with the absorbent material causes it to pass upward, 

 so rendering it harmless to the bees. ' I suppose there is the 

 slightest possible upward ventilation, a sort of slow percola- 

 tion of air and moisture, but it works well, provided the en- 

 trance of the hive is not too narrow and contracted. 



OONUUCTED BY 



DR. J. JP. n. BRO\VlSr, AUGUSTA., GA. 



[Please send all questions relating to bee-keeping in the South direct 

 to Br. Brown, and he will answer in this department.— Ed. 1 



The Uphills and Downliills in Bee-Keeping. 



Dear Dr. Brown : — Through the American Bee Journal 

 you may take the idea that I am a Texas bee-man. You may 

 be right, as I keep about 100 colonies, more or less. The 

 number changes like the fall and rise of the hygrometer ; 

 from 100 it may fall to 80, from 80 to 120, but with not 

 much honey, nearly at all seasons. You may see by this that 

 my method of keeping bees is sul generis. You would naturally 

 ask: "By the heavens, what is the matter ?" As a christian 

 gentleman the inquiry would be well put; for they are heav- 

 enly influences (say nothing of a personal character) that 

 make the bee-business with me a financial failure. This 

 heavenly blight is the aridity of our climate; not only in the 

 bee-business, but of nearly all others except the onerous tax 

 business, and the land business, that periodically prospers 

 here on the patronage of foreign " fools." 



I keep bees because I love them, and often make them in- 

 strumental to all sorts of experiments. My experience in the 

 bee-line is prodigious, and I believe I could tell you more 

 about apiarian failures than any one in the fraternity. My 

 present stock is from three colonies ; but in a land of the liv- 

 ing I should be monarch of a thousand queens, with at least 

 two billions working subjects to increase the store of my 

 wealth. 



In the dehut of my bee-enterprise I expended money lib- 

 erally on it ; and to look at the systematic array of my hives, 

 nicely painted, and artistically numbered, nestled within a 

 cool (?) grove, the sight is one to excite admiration. My api- 

 ary is really a bower of delight; but not profitable, and to 

 tread with peaceful intentions among a hundred queens, each 

 guarded by a terrible army of many thousand, is the " sweet 



