AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



755 



place, they are unfit for out-yards, one 

 taking up more room than six of my 

 small hives. It, would require a ten- 

 acre lot to -work them in. Each hive 

 would require enough bees to stock 8 or 

 10 of the small hives. I can rear more 

 queens from a certain number of small 

 hives, with less work, less expense, less 

 time, less bother, and less loss. When 

 Fall comes double them up — they are 

 worth uniting. 



It is a waste of bees, time, and money to 

 use 4-frame Langstroth nuclei for mating 

 queens. A four-frame Langstroth nuclei 

 is worth more as a full colony, and I 

 would advise Mr. Trego to give his atten- 

 tion to full colonies for honey rather 

 than ruin his colonies by smashing them 

 into expensive four-frame hives for mat- 

 ing queens. There would be more money 

 in it for me. 



As a queen-mater for profit, Mr. T. 

 seems to be a total failure. There are 

 many queen-breeders now using my 

 method of nuclei management, and they 

 do not have Mr. T.'s trouble when cor- 

 rectly managed. 



Last season I worked 100 small hives 

 with but two combs each, 4Jix4j^ 

 inches, and half a pint of bees each to 

 start with. Out of the 100 nuclei thus 

 arrayed I took 98 mated queens on one 

 mailing trip. I shall work them all in 

 this manner next season, and I believe I 

 can mate my queens at even less expense 

 than I did last season. 



Beverly, Mass. 



Bee-Hoiise AlioTe Qroimil, 



C. LOWEE. 



In further answer to the question on 

 page 652, I will say that I built a bee- 

 house one year ago 8x8 feet, and 7 feet 

 high. The studding, 2x4 inches, was 

 turned sidewise, sheathed with 1-inch 

 pine lumber, papered on the outside with 

 building paper, and then sided with 

 K-inch lumber. The flooring and ceil- 

 ing overhead was unmatched inch-boards, 

 and I covered both the floor and ceiling 

 with oat-straw and chaff, about 6 inches 

 deep. 



I hung a door made of inch-boards in 

 one end, 23^x63^ feet; put a small door 

 in the gable end, and covered the build- 

 ing with common sheathing and shingles. 

 This finished the building, which I set 

 on four stone pillars, one foot from the 

 ground, with no underpinning. 



The bees were prepared for Winter- 

 quarters thus : The hives are 13^-story, 



with cloth over the brood-frames, which 

 I turned back about two inches, at the 

 back part of the hive, and cut a piece of 

 wire-screening large enough to cover the 

 opening, and then filled up the hives 

 with oat-straw and chaff, so full that the 

 cover would not go down by one inch, 

 and then put them in the above de- 

 scribed house. My 13 colonies remained 

 there until Spring, and all came out in 

 fine condition except one colony, which 

 died with the diarrhea. Twice during 

 the Winter the thermometer indicated 

 16 degrees below zero in the building. 

 The idea of having to keep bees in a 

 room that is 8 or 10 degrees above the 

 freezing point is "all moonshine." 



The main point in Wintering bees is to 

 keep them quiet and dry. 



Decorah, Iowa. 



[Surely Mr. Lower has made a mis- 

 take in writing the above. He cannot 

 mean 16 degrees below zero — that would 

 be 48 degrees below the freezing point ! 

 For the temperature in a bee-house, 

 even for a short time, that would be pre- 

 posterous ! Did he not mean to say 16 

 degrees below the freezing point ?J 



How I Have f Interei My Bees. 



ALBERTUS BAILEY. 



About ten years ago I built a house for 

 Wintering my bees, and it has paid me 

 as well as any investment connected with 

 the bee business. Not only has it proved 

 profitable as a building for Wintering, 

 but I have use for it in the Summer for 

 storing honey, and doing work in con- 

 nected with the apiary. Four years ago 

 I built another, so now I use one for 

 storing honey, and the other for ex- 

 tracting and storing the honey-racks 

 when removing surplus honey. 



The building (outside measure) is 12x 

 20 feet, and is built on a foundation 

 high- enough to protect the sills, and 

 thick enough to prevent frost from 

 entering. The sills are 2x8 inches. 



Beginning from the outside : First, 

 cove-ceiling nailed to 8-inch studs. Inside 

 it is ceiled with 1-inch hemlock ; 2x4 

 scantling are used overhead on which to 

 nail the ceiling. This leaves a space of 

 8 inches to be filled with sawdust on the 

 sides, and I put about 12 inches of saw- 

 dust overhead. 



I have a ventilator within about 4 feet 

 of the ends overhead ; a sub-earth ven- 



