Tb 



e (i)ee- 



eepeps jAcviea 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL 

 Devoted to tl^e Interests of Hoqey Producers. 



$L00 A YEAR, 

 W. Z. HDTCHISON, Editor and Proprietor. 



VOL, VII 



FLINT, 



IICHIGAN, 



JULY 10. 1894. 



NO, 7. 



AVork at IVEioliigan's 



Experimental 



Apiary. 



B. L, TATLOB, APIARIST. 



SPBING PEOTEOTION AND STIMULATIVE 



FEEDING. 



TN making ex- 

 1 perimentswith 

 bees it goes witli- 

 oat saying that 

 the rule that pre- 

 vai's in experi- 

 mentation in oth- 

 er matters holds 

 with them, viz., 

 that the larger 

 the number of in- 

 dividuals taken 

 into considera- 

 tion in an experiment the more reliable are 

 the results obtained, or, at least, the less 

 liable are the results to be vitiated by con- 

 tingencies resulting from inscrutable cir- 

 cumstances ; with this fact in mind, ar- 

 rangements were made early in the season 

 to conduct some experiments on a scale of 

 some magnitude looking to a solution of 

 some of the problems relating to the spring 

 protection of bees and to the so-called stim- 

 ulative feeding of bees. The plan was to 

 keep a " hive history " of each of the col- 

 nies considered in the experiment as fully as 

 it might be practicable to do so from the 



time the bees began to gather pollen in the 

 spring until the close of the honey season 

 and to include in the experiment three or 

 four times as many bees as the apiary be- 

 longing to the station contains. The ex- 

 periment was begun with upwards of eighty 

 colonies, but on account of the condition of 

 the bees and other circumstances losses were 

 sustained and substraction made which have 

 reduced the number to sixty-one. Of this 

 latter number, nine two-story Heddon hives 

 and twelve one-story ones were packed in 

 sawdust from the 10th of April till the 10th 

 of -June, while twenty, two-story ones and 

 twenty one-story ones were unpacked. Saw- 

 dust was used because planer shavings which 

 would have been preferred could not be ob- 

 tained. The sawdust was apparently dry 

 but close examination showed it was not en- 

 tirely so — not being thoroughly seasoned. 

 In consequence of this defect care was taken 

 to remove the covers from tlie i)acking dur- 

 ing sunny days until the packing was en- 

 tirely dry. This operation must have had 

 an added advantage since it was found it 

 permitted the sun to penetrate to the hives 

 and store much heat in the sawdust. 



The packing was from two to three inches 

 thick on the front of the hives, three inches 

 on top of covers and about four inches on 

 the back ends and sides except where two or 

 more hives were adjacent when the space be- 

 tween was entirely filled. 



On the removal of the colonies from the 

 cellar just before the packing was done they 

 were divided into two classes one consisting 



