1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



409 



enabled to give them oolder air when neces- 

 sary, which soon quieted them down. 



Every hive was weighed as it was taken 

 in and out of the cellar, with the following 

 results: 



They all came out in good condition in the 

 spring, with hives dry and clean. The prin- 

 cipal care during the winter was to keep the 

 temperature even and the enti'ances open. 



Last fall I added an improvement to the 

 bee-room by boxing in a window thi'ee feet 

 distant, on the opposite side from the tiles, 

 connecting it with the bee-room. Another 

 window inside, opposite the outer one, pre- 

 vents loss of light in the cellar The outer 

 window is on hinges, and is opened and shut 

 by means of a rod attached, having a hook 

 on the cellar end, which may be hooked into 

 links of a chain fastened to a joist above to 

 permit any size of opening desired. 



In mild weather the window is kept part- 

 ly open, so the bees are virtually in the open 

 air at a temperature of from 40° to 45°. A 

 thermometer, suspended by a cord, hangs 

 just inside the door, and can be reached and 

 drawn out for observation without going 

 in. 



I have 17 colonies in the room at present, 

 and have the temperature fairly under con- 

 trol. As one attends to the furnace morning 

 and night it is but little extra work to adjust 

 the window to conditions of weather outside 

 during changes. Steady even weather re- 

 quires no adjustment. Perhaps the leaf cush- 

 ions and supers are unnecessary; but they 

 permit sliding the covers partly off, if up- 

 ward ventilation is needed, without bees es- 

 caping; they also allow the placing of candy 

 or honey over the frames if feeding in spring 

 is necessary. 



I fed some in this way with candy last 

 spring with good results. A two-inch rim 

 under No. 2, with front covered with wire, 

 produced no better results, but no care was 

 necessary to keep entrance clear. 



Boes which leave the hive in the cellar or 

 bee-room never return. Why let them out? 

 Those that must die can die as well inside, 

 while those able to fiy out can be saved. 

 The entrances of some hives remain clear all 

 winter, few bees dying, while others lose a 

 lot of bees — proportioned, I suppose, to the 

 number in the colony and to their ages. 



This method of wintering bees is very sat- 

 isfactory to me, both in saving of bees and 

 honey, as shown by the above table, and 

 comes about as near a certainty as we can 

 get, in my opinion. 



Verona, N. Y. 



WEAK COLONIES IN THE SPRING. 



The Alexander Plan of Building them up; 



some Experiments to Show that, 



with Two Colonies, it was 



Not a Success. 



BY WM. L. COUPER. 



I regret to say that I am one of the com- 

 paratively few who failed in trying Mr. Alex- 

 ander's plan of placing a very weak colony 

 above a very strong one, with an excluder 

 between. I quite agree with Mr. Alexander 

 that the method is one of the most valuable 

 kinks that have been given to the bee-keep- 

 ing world, and the fact that it has failed with 

 some is merely a proof of the fact that no 

 method will suit all cases. I tried the plan 

 with only four colonies. In one case 1 ex- 

 actly followed Mr. Alexander's instructions; 

 in the other I varied to the extent that the 

 upper colony was not very weak and the 

 lower was only marked strong, not vei-y 

 strong. 



In order to make the appended notes of 

 my experience with this scheme intelligible 

 I must give a short explanation of my system 

 of spring management. I look at ea' h colo- 

 ny once a week, weather permitting, mark- 

 ing the date and condition of each opposite 

 its number, in a note-book, thus: 



No. 30, w 2, May 7, means that on that 

 date colony No. 30 was weak and contained 

 two frames of brood. 



To show the results of treated colonies 

 compared with those not treated I give these 

 with eight colonies as follows: 



Al and Bl were the strong colonies selected, and A2 

 and B2 the weak ones to be placed over them. C and 

 E were strong colonies, and D and F weak ones man- 

 aged in some other way; v stands for very; s for 

 strong; w for weak; m for moderate. The figures show 

 the number of combs of brood. 



It will be seen by this table that the treat- 

 ed colonies at the commencement of the test 

 were as nearly as possible in the same con- 

 dition as those untreated, selected for com- 

 parison. In the case of the former, neither 

 top nor bottom story built up nearly as (juick- 

 ly as in the latter. When any colony Iniilds 

 up to six or seven frames of brood in an 

 eight-frame hive I give a second stox-y, and, 

 after this, records are kept in another place. 

 I can not give the recoi'ds of A2 and B2 aft- 

 er they were placed on their old stands, as 

 the loss of Held bees weakened them so that 

 I had to build them up by other means. The 

 colonies were joined quietly, and there was 

 no fighting. A was the strongest colony in 

 the apiary, but it did not build up as fast as 



I can not answer absolutely for the dates, 



