1388 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 1 



entrance contracted a la Bingham things 

 might have turned out favorably. A good 

 thing in 07ie place is not a good thing in 

 every place; and even if the two places are 

 no further apart than were that cellar and 

 that deplored milk-house, it was a matter 

 of "locality," after all. 

 New Memphis, 111. 





ENTRANCES TO HIVES IN A CELLAR; HOW TO 



CURE ROBBING; THE CARE OP BEES 



IN THE SPRING. 



I have been reading about your experi- 

 ments with ventilated bottom-boards in the 

 April 15th issue, p 557. I think hives need 

 bottom- boards with merely a | entrance the 

 width of the hive. I put 55 colonies in my 

 bee-cellar about Nov 20. On a part of them 

 I left the bottom-boards, and you would be 

 surprised to see how much better they win- 

 tered. I always left them off every winter 

 before, because almost every one else did. 



Another thing about wintering that I have 

 found helps out a great deal when the bees 

 f re through flying in the fall is to go to the 

 hives and take out the lightest comb that con- 

 tains no brood, and put a frame of nice clo- 

 ver honey in the center of the brood-nest. 

 The bees will move a lot of that honey, and 

 that will stimulate brood-rearing. What 

 they move will be put close to the cluster to 

 eat in winter. 



Another thing I never saw in print. If 

 your bees get to robbing, and they get whip- 

 ped out, put them back down cellar, robbers 

 and all; then when things get quiet, carry 

 them out again. 



If a man wants to make good wages in his 

 apiary in the spring, take a dish of paste and 

 a lot of strips of paper about two inches 

 wide, and paste them around the cover, and 

 wherever there is any chance for heat to es- 

 cape or cold come in. R. T. Carey. 



Spencerport, N. Y. 



A bee-cellar where THE TEMPERATURE 



VARIES BUT THREE DEGREES 



ALL WINTER 



I have 178 colonies of bees in my bee-house 

 cellar, wintering finely. The bees are quiet, 

 for the temperature is only one degree cold- 

 er at the bottom than at the top, 8 feet deep. 

 It changes only three degrees, whether at 

 zero or ftO above; stands at 44. The heat of 

 the bees keeps it dry and warm. They need 

 only 30 square inches for ventilation. I have 

 four chimneys, one on each of the four 

 corners, 12 X 22 in., open i X 22 inches. I 

 have one more in the center, two feet high- 



er, open JX22 inches. The corner ones are 

 13 feet high, resting on top of the floor. The 

 one in the center is 8 feet above the floor; the 

 floor is 5 in. thick, 2 of boards; paper and 

 planer-shavings, 3J. It was an easy task to 

 put them in, taking two men and two wheel- 

 barrows to carry them in, putting 3 skids on 

 the platform, letting them down with tackles. 

 Then go down, pile them up five high, row 

 8 ft. high, 18 ft. square. I have a room over 

 the cellar, of six-inch plowed and grooved sid- 

 ing, lined with paper; double doors 8 feet 

 high, 4 windows, one on each of the four 

 sides. It is a nice building, painted red with 

 blue on each side; roof is of paroid paper; 

 cellar walls are 12 inches thick, cement work, 

 concrete cement bottom, using 6500 lbs. of 

 best Portland cement. 

 Amity, N. Y., Jan 25. J. W. Utter. 



WIRE CLOTH OVER THE OPENING TO THE 

 ALEXANDER FEEDER. 



This is my second season in the use of the 

 Alexander feeder. I have just added a de- 

 vice to it that pleases me greatly. It is sim- 

 ply a wire-cloth cover over the outer end of 

 the feeder, depressed into a saucer-shaped 

 receptacle to receive the feed. To fix the 

 feeder, cut away the bars with a chisel so 

 the center of the depression will be | inch in 

 depth. The wire cloth is held in place by 

 two small tacks driven through it into the 



end corners of the trough, and one tack 

 driven down into the center of the depres- 

 sion. For handling the feed I use a two-gal- 

 lon sprinkler with the rose removed. 

 Farina, 111. T. P. Andrews. 



[But this wire cloth ought to be covered 

 with a block to keep chilling air currents go- 

 ing up into the hive and to prevent drawing 

 robbers. — Ed.] 



CANDIED HONET KILLS COLONIES IN THE 

 CELLAR. 



When our bees were taken out of the cel- 

 lar the honey in all the hives was granulat- 

 ed. There was no moisture in it — just the 

 dry sugar part. The combs of the hives in 

 which the bees had died were gnawed by 

 them in their effort to get the honey. This 



