THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



601 



for bees ; fragments of lumber in 

 making hives and frames ; fragments 

 of combs for wax ; and every drop of 

 honey is useful ; even thougti mixed 

 with dirt, it can be fed to needy 

 colonies. 



11. Some bee-keepers seek their 

 prolits in rearing bees or queens to 

 sell ; but remember that the true aim 

 of bee-keeping is to supply the market 

 with delicious honey. 



12. Live not for self. Make your 

 knowledge profitable to others seek- 

 ing to learu bee-keeping, that the 

 coming generation of bee keepers 

 may excel the present, increasing in 

 numbers and in knowledge, until 

 every pound of honey secreted by the 

 unnumbered flowers of our land is 

 gathered. 



In the first place, even those most 

 ignorant anent the ways of bee-keep- 

 ing, who intend to embark in that 

 pursuit, will by a careful reading and 

 digesting of the above truths, come 

 to the conclusion that " all's not gold 

 that glitters ,•" and that they cannot 

 be carried through beekeeping " on 

 flowery beds of ease." That nice, 

 lovely, mellifluent article, viz: anent 

 the vending of honey at -50 cents per 

 pound, would glitter like gold to one 

 to whom ignorance of the apiary is 

 bliss, and the consequence is, he 

 starts in with conceit, money and 

 experience in the following propor- 

 tion : Conceit, O ; money, 0; experi- 

 ence,o ; and come out in the " little end 

 of the horn " with— experience, O ; 

 conceit, ; money, o. 



Mr. Ralston, the author of these 

 proverbs, says: "Nor are all the 

 paths thereof the paths of peace;" 

 especially I think so when one gets a 

 stinger on his eye-lids, and have those 

 sight-seeing orbs closed up ; and then 

 seek some sombre room— a soothing 

 panacea for him — to hide the vista of 

 his face from callers, and I cogitate 

 that the novice, induced by flowery 

 statements, would trow so too. 



1 wish that every person who starts 

 in bee-keeping— especially those in- 

 duced by mellifluous statements- 

 would make a careful perusal of these 

 twelve proverbs; and I am of the 

 opinion, if they follow them out 

 strictly, they would not become dis- 

 gusted and fail ; and albeit they do 

 rail, not then to take out their spite 

 on the innocent bee by concocting 

 hideous lies anent sophisticated comb 

 honey ; nor execrate the honey-bee— 

 that wonderful caterer of envied 

 sweets, and also one of Nature's 

 grandest pieces of mechanism, which 

 by its work, purveys work for thou- 

 sands of people. 



Mr. Ralston has truly brought out 

 that adage, viz : " The maximum of 

 thought in the minimum of words," 

 anent bee-keeping ; that all beginners 

 should try his proverbs, and that with 

 a colony or so ad Ubitwin, every day 

 they have the chance. 



As the whirlpool sucks down its 

 prey insatiable, so do failures in bee- 

 keeping suck down many of those 

 palavered by sweetened and flavored 

 statements about bees, such as — O, I 

 need not reiterate. 



Pleasant Ridge, ? O. 



Exchange. 



Wintering Bees in tlie Cellar. 



EUGENE SECOR. 



That protection of some sort is 

 necessary, in our rigorous Northern 

 climate, is admitted by most bee- 

 keepers, not only on the ground of 

 kindness to the creatures that God 

 has given us dominion over, but also 

 because it is economy to furnish it. 

 Even if they would winter out-of- 

 doors, and unprotected, the saving in 

 honey consumed more than pays for 

 the protection afforded, for the reason 

 that a warm stable has advantages 

 over the sunny side of a barb-wire 

 fence, in wintering a cow. 



I do not know how it may be further 

 south, but for this latitude and longi- 

 tude, I believe there is no place so 

 safe and so cheap, in which to winter 

 bees, as a good cellar. Some people 

 have " gone wild " over chaff-hives, 

 and packing on the summer stands, 

 but I think the statistics of losses 

 have been in favor of cellar-winter- 

 ing. If they cannot be wintered suc- 

 cessfully in a good cellar, the temper- 

 ature of which never gets so low as to 

 freeze potatoes (it ought to be 10° 

 above that), I do not believe they can 

 be carried safely through by any 

 system of packing yet devised. 



So far as my observation extends, 

 when severe losses have occurred in 

 cellar-wintering, they can be traced 

 to two causes : first, putting them in 

 too late in the season, when the hives 

 were full of frost ; or, second, allow- 

 ing the temperature in the cellar to 

 get too low. 



A great many seem to think that 

 because bees will sometimes live out- 

 of-doors, in a temperature at times 

 below zero, they can certainly stand 

 it in a cellar considerably below freez- 

 ing, without harm. While I may not 

 be able to give a satisfactory reason 

 why this is not so, facts are stubborn 

 things,and it is useless to resist them, 

 simply because they do not accord 

 with our preconceived notions. Any 

 one who has spent a winter at the 

 sea-coast will admit that a humid 

 atmosphere is much more penetrating 

 than a dry one, and a good deal colder. 

 I do not believe that a damp cellar is 

 any disadvantage if warm enough 

 {say 45°). 



Out-of-doors, bees will endure very 

 severe cold weather, if not of too long 

 duration. If it would moderate 

 enough for them to break the cluster 

 and get to their stores, they might 

 winter reasonably well without any 

 protection (consuming more honey, of 

 course), but in a climate where the 

 mercury stands below zero for weeks 

 at a time, they might starve with 

 plenty of honey in the hive. 



If the cellar is just as safe a place 

 to winter bees as out-doors, packed in 

 any way the bee-keeper chooses, it 

 certainly has economy to recommend 

 it. It is no small job to prepare, and 

 no light expense to maintain, double- 

 walled hives for out-door wintering. 



In bee-keeping, as in any other 

 business, the least money tied up in 

 permanent fixtures, consistent with 



true economy, the better. The value 

 of a colony of bees consists chiefly in 

 the queen and her retinue of workers, 

 and not in the costly hive they live in. 

 If wintered in the cellar, no extra 

 capital need be invested in double- 

 walled chaff hives. The labor of 

 putting them in in the fall, and tak- 

 ing them out in the spring, is so light 

 and insignificant as to scarcely need 

 mentioning. Two men can easily 

 handle 50 colonies in two hours. 



Another advantage in cellar-win- 

 tering is, that every hive must be 

 handled twice a year, and if light in 

 weight, the manager will surely de- 

 tect it without the trouble of putting 

 it on the scales, and can supply the 

 deficiency. 



The above are some of the reasons 

 why I believe in cellar-wintering. 



It will pay to keep a thermometer 

 hanging in the cellar, and not allow 

 it to go below 35°. Keep the cellar 

 perfectly dark, and perfectly quiet, 

 except to look at them occasionally, 

 if need be. Leave the entrances wide 

 open, and occasionally clean out the 

 dead bees. Destroy all mice, or they 

 will destroy the colonies. 



Forest City, (5 Iowa. 



For tbe American Bee JoumaL 



TlieCanseof"Bare-Heai[e(l" Brood. 



H. E. HILL. 



Mr. Erslev's article on page 569, 

 contains some instructive points, but 

 the •' bare-headed " bees referred to 

 by our friend " across the sea," is 

 quite different from that of which I 

 wrote. It is not uncommon to ob- 

 serve the effect of the moth-woim 

 among the brood of black bees in 

 America, either. 



Their path may be easily traced 

 running in a direct line with the rows 

 of cells, diagonally across the comb, 

 er, sometimes, branching off as grace- 

 fully as the leaves upon a frosted 

 pane, according to their stage of de- 

 velopment at the time of being at- 

 tacked, some having never been 

 sealed. Those further advanced have 

 the cappings mutilated by the bees, 

 so as to present a white appearance. 

 The dark head of others may be 

 faintly seen through the semi-trans- 

 parent cocoon which has been gnawed 

 nearly through ; and occasionally one 

 or two may be seen emerging from 

 the cell, evidently sooner than was 

 required by law (of nature). 



These bleached, delicate baby bees 

 crawl and drop about, often with a 

 particle of web still adhering to the 

 tip of the abdomen, showing that the 

 posterior had been enveloped in the 

 web of the moth at the septum of the 

 comb, until they are carried out to 

 die. These are, in reality, as much 

 " bare-headed " bees as any, but on a 

 much smaller scale, and of a decidedly 

 different nature. 



When one draws three or four 

 combs from a hive and finds every cell 

 open, exposing to view brood in all 

 stages from the egg to bees emerging 

 fully developed, and other colonies 

 the same or in a similar condition, 



