PRACTICAL BEEKEEPING 53 



04-05. To facilitate these experiments and the general work of the 

 apiary a clapboard, one story building was erected on the Station 

 farm just east of the poultry buildings. This bee house contains 

 three rooms, one for a shop fitted up with a work bench and the 

 necessary tools, a second for a honey room, containing the ex- 

 tractor, uncapping can, honey tank and tubs, together with scales 

 and table and all the necessary things for canning and labeling the 

 honey. 



At the back side of the building, and running the length of it, 

 is a *oom with a dirt floor fitted up with two skeleton shelves of 

 two-by-fours so that some forty or fifty colonies of bees may be 

 wintered under as nearly normal conditions as possible with the en- 

 trances connected with the outside, permitting the bees to fly at will. 

 Above these rooms in the gable roof, is ample storage room for 

 empty hives and for surplus combs when not in use for the honey 

 harvest. 



During the first two winters prior to the erection of this bee 

 house, experiments were carried on in outdoor wintering and in 

 packing a number of colonies in straw under one roof. The ex- 

 periments during the last two years were not only modified by the 

 indoor wintering with packing only above the colonies but also by 

 packing colonies in straw in an open shed against the side of the 

 house. (See the accompanying figures.) 



Tests were also made of the wintering qualities of Carniolans, 

 Italians, Cyprians, Cyprio-Carniolans and Caucasio-Carniolans. 

 The queens of these races and crosses were obtained through the 

 courtesy of the agricultural workers of the bureau of Entomology, 

 at Washington. The various qualities of these varieties of bees 

 have been discussed in full in earlier ages. The Carniolans seem 

 to hold the lead as winterers, though the marvelous powers of the 

 Cyprians and their crosses to build up in the spring quite in contrast 

 to the Italians, make them worthy of notice in this connection, as 

 good winterers for this if for no other reasons. 



The methods of handling bees in Montana, as in some other 

 localities, in the late summer and foil, has a good deal to do with 

 their successful wintering. This is particularly true in the Gallatin 

 Valley, where there is no autumn yield of honey. By no yield 

 we do not mean that absolutely no honey is gathered but that there 

 is no harvest beyond what is needed by the bees. We observed that 



