740 



GLEANlIs'GiS 1:N i3EE CULTURE. 



1)EC. 



way, and I call it my "Red, White, and Blue Apia- 

 ry." Geo. E. Hilton. 



Fremont, Mich., Oct. 15, 1883. 



And so, dear friend, there is sadness, after 

 all, hovering over that little home. The 

 loved one has gone; it is sad, I know; and 

 yet you can thank God you know she is 

 in heaven waiting for you. 



Heaven and earth shall pa'S away, but my words 

 shall not pass away.— mark 1o:31. 



liOWER VENTILATION, ET€. 



SHALL WK ENLARGE OB CONTRACT THE ENTRANCES? 



AM much perplexed in regard to wintering my 

 bees. In the ABC, and in Gleanings, you and 

 many others recommend chaff packing to keep 

 them warm. Now, do bees really freeze ? or do 

 they become benumbed by the cold, and in a long 

 spell of zero weather consume their stores where 

 they are, and as they can not move, they cousequent- 

 ly starve ? A neighbor of mine, abox-hive bee-keep- 

 er, who winters his bees on their summer stands, 

 says he leaves the hives raised up off the bottom- 

 board from Vi to U of an inch all around, and has no 

 losses, if they have honey enough. He used to close 

 up, except a small entrance, and would lose some 

 every winter. You also recommend leaving the 

 entrance open wide, even in the coldest weather. 

 Now, what is the use of a warm house, if we leave 

 the door wide open ? Four or five years ago, during 

 about five weeks of December and January, the 

 thermometer ranged from 10° above to 10° below ze- 

 ro every night, and did not get above freezing dur- 

 ing the day. That winter about hnlt the bees in this 

 section died, and they nearly all had honey in the 

 hives. One man lost all he had outside; but had 

 3 hives in the cellar that came through all rierht. 

 Quite often we hear of losses coupled 

 with the remark, "Chaff packing would 

 not save them." 



The conclusion I have arrived at, is 

 this: That a single - walled hive will 

 warm up as quick, or quicker, than one 

 with double walls, on a bright sunny 

 day, and give the bees a chance to 

 move to where their stores are; and, if 

 we are having a long spell of zero 

 weaiher, we had better move all hives 

 (whether packed in chaff or not), to the 

 cellar until the weather moderates. 

 F. A. Hayes. 

 Montoursville, Pa., Nov. 23, 1883. 



Friend H., there is something 

 a little contradictory here; bat 

 both sides are right, I think. We 

 have had abundant evidence that 

 bees winter with a large amount '-- 

 of ventilation, where they do not 

 otherwise. I think there is a good deal of use 

 in having a warm house, even if we leave the 

 door wide open. Go into any crowded au- 

 dience, and you will soon feel the need of 

 having a door wide open, or several of them. 

 But at the same time we feel this need, we 

 also need a good warm structure for the 

 crowded audience, especially if the weather 

 be severely cold. So it is with the bee-hive. 

 The value of chaff packing and chaft cush- 

 ions has been abundantly proven ; but at 



the same time, we want to make ample pro- 

 vision for plenty of pure air for this crowd- 

 ed "audience" inside of the walls and 

 under the chaff cushions. Our crowded 

 audience would suffer in a barn, and our 

 audience of bees would also suffer in a thin- 

 walled hive, in fact, when they would not in 

 the chaff-packed hive. I think the ABC 

 book will make this plain to you. Now, 

 another point comes in here : Bees in 

 single-walled hives get dried out and warm- 

 ed up during a sunshiny wintry day, when 

 those in chaff hives would not ; and on this 

 account, thin hives in the springtime have a 

 certain advantage over chaff-packed ones. 

 This advantage, however, is overbalanced 

 by the use of chaff' hives at other times. 



FRIEND GKAVENifORST'S NEW JOUR- 

 NAL.. 



another publication in the GERMAN LAN- 

 GUAGE. 



^gpHERE can be no better evidence of the 

 ^ deep hold that bee-keeping is making 

 — ' on the minds of the people, than the 

 large number of jouinals devoted to the dis- 

 semination of apicultuial knowledge. 

 Among the latest is one from Germany, en- 

 titled llie " Deutsche lilustrierte Bienenzeit- 

 uvgy edited by that able scholar and apicul- 

 turist, C. J. II. Gravenhorst. It contains 32 

 pages, a little smaller than these, elegantly 

 illustrated. The extreme fineness of the 

 cuts in this journal is certainly a wonder. 

 Only in the high-priced magazines, such as 

 Harpers and tlfe Cenlury, can we find their 

 equal. As an example, "we herewith give a 

 cut of our fdn. mill, which friend G. had en- 

 graved from a photograph we sent him. 



The literary contents of the journal are of 

 the highest order, and will be eagerly read 

 by all acquainted with the German language. 

 We commend the magazine as one of the 

 best, and fully up to the times. As the price 

 is only $1.00 per year, we will club it with 

 Gleanings at the same price. You may 

 send subscriptions to us, or to friend G., as 

 you choose. Perhaps you had better send to 

 him for samples, as we have none in stock. 

 His address is Braunschweig, Germany. 



