AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



121 



Preparations for next season's work 

 should begin now. A great deal can be 

 done during the Winter toward fixing up 

 boxes, refitting hives and a thousand 

 other things that will have to be done 

 before a crop of honey can be secured. 

 Now is the time to do it. If you have 

 not a house or work-shop to work in, you 

 should have. 



You will make more money from your 

 bees by letting them swarm naturally. If 

 you want to work bees just for fun, and 

 have peiity of money to spare, by all 

 means use the artificial method. I 

 work bees for the money there is in them 

 and not for fun. 



I only obtained a little over 1,500 

 pounds of honey this season all told. 

 Remember, I only had 41 colonies to 

 start with in the Spring, and from this 

 number I only obtained 20 new colo- 

 nies. I well know that this is a bad 

 story for an experienced apiarist, but I 

 wish somebody would tell me how to get 

 a better result in a poor season. 



" Stray Straws," edited by Dr. Miller in 

 Gleanings, takes my eye, and I believe 

 is going to be interesting. 



Ventilation in Winter Rejositories, etc. 



E. C. EAGLE SFIELD. 



About 8 years ago I bought 3 colonies 

 of bees in Langstroth hives, I got them 

 in the Fall to winter them. I placed 

 them against the south end of the house 

 facing them south, packed straw all 

 around, except in front and put an old 

 sap pan over them to keep the rain off. 

 I found them all dead before Spring, 

 death being caused by too little ventila- 

 tion. There were 5 colonies when I got 

 them, with lots of honey. 



As I was away from home that Summer 

 most of the time, I did not buy any more 

 bees, but the next Spring I bought some 

 more and they increased to 9 colonies. 

 I placed them in the cellar and before 

 Spring the mice had destroyed 3 colonies. 

 Since then I have always kept strychnine 

 for the mice with good effect. I take a 

 cookie and moisten one side, then place 

 the crystals of strychnine all over it and 

 lay it where nothing can get at it but 

 mice and rats. I then bought a few 

 weak colonies which made 11, spring 

 count, and they increased by the Fall to 

 48. My best colony, in a box hive, gave 

 8 swarms, and as it was bees, and n.ot 

 honey, I wanted, the swarming pleased 

 me. I fed them about 500 pounds of 

 sugar for Winter stores, and they win- 

 tered nicely, but when I set them out in 



the Spring I thought my queens were all 

 dead and that the workers were laying. 

 There would be a spot on the center 

 combs with a dozen eggs or more in a 

 cell, some just laid, but the most of them 

 shriveled down very small. Things 

 changed in 3 days when the bees began 

 to get pollen, and I was happy when I 

 found all my queens laying and brood 

 being reared well. 



My bees increased that year and the 

 next, to 150 colonies, and 4 years ago I 

 got 3,000 pounds of white clover honey, 

 the most of which brought me 15 cents 

 per pound, which disappointed some 

 persons who said my bees would bank- 

 rupt me. They more than paid all the 

 expense I had been to. That Fall I sold 

 all my bees but 25 colonies, and moved 

 them 15 miles to where I now live. As 

 the cellar was in bad condition, only 11 

 colonies survived. They were in the 

 finest condition when placed in the 

 cellar. 



A neighbor, who bought 25 colonies 

 of me, never lost a colony. I moved his 

 at the same time and the same distance, 

 as my own, but they were placed in a 

 different cellar. I mention this to show 

 that it was not the pollen that killed 

 mine, but the poor repository, as the 

 condition of the 2 lots of bees were as 

 near alike as 2 peas. 



The next Summer I rebuilt my house 

 and in the Fall placed 16 colonies in the 

 cellar. All came through the Winter 

 and Spring strong, without the loss of a 

 single colony. 



The next Winter I put 74 colonies in 

 the cellar, with the same result as the 

 previous year, so a year ago last Spring, 

 after buying 8 more colonies, I had 82 

 to commence the season with. They 

 gathered 9,300 pounds of comb-honey 

 and 700 pounds of extracted, and came 

 through last Winter and Spring without 

 losing a single colony. They had in- 

 creased to 137 colonies and I sold 40 in 

 the Fall, so that left me 97, Spring 

 count. They increased (including my 

 nuclei after being united), to 135 and I 

 placed them in the cellar on Nov. 6, 

 which was 9 days earlier than I ever 

 placed them in before. They have every 

 appearance of wintering nicely so far, 

 and if nothing happens to cause the 

 cappings of the honey to crack, I expect 

 every colony to come through all right. 



I think nearly }i of the bees in this 

 section died last Winter. There was 

 only 1 colony died out of the 40 I sold 

 last Fall, and that, I think lost their 

 queen in moving. 



Last season was the poorest for Honey 

 I have ever known, I think many colo- 



