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THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



of the Review, that in two articles I wrote 

 a year or more ago, protestiug against the, 

 to me, very near criminal advocacy of "seal- 

 ed covers," by leading bee journals. Such 

 teaching, at this late day of experimental 

 knowledge, raises the question in my mind 

 sometimes wliother the bee journals had not, 

 in their well-meaning but careless teaching 

 of uuatural and unproved theories, done 

 more harm than good. Now, if this man 

 had been reading the journals, he, like my- 

 self, would have been led to distrust his own 

 practices, as thousands of others have, great- 

 ly to his loss ; and I ha.ve no doubt that this 

 pernicious tampering with sealed covers re- 

 commended by so-called great lights, has 

 caused the loss of tens of thousands of colo- 

 nies in the winter just passed. I see the 

 leading journals are calling for the fullest 

 reports in regard to the success of sealed 

 covers the past hard winter and this is great- 

 ly to their credit as showing an honest de- 

 sire to find the truth. Bee-keepers should 

 make full and careful reports in regard to 

 the comparative results of sealed covers and 

 other methods, and then be very careful in 

 the future to recommend nothing as truth 

 until well established experiments have de- 

 monstrated the facts. I see Mrs. Axtell, in 

 a late number of Gleanings, speaks of their 

 tine success in wintering four colonies, in 

 box hives, but she mentions the fact of their 

 abundant stores and also that other impor- 

 tant fact of there being four holes, three by 

 four inches in diameter, in the top of each 

 hive. Here was, I contend, all the " law and 

 the prophets" of the prime conditions for 

 successful wintering. 



Those that liave read the early writings of 

 M. Quinby will remember that before he 

 adopted the moveable frame hive, that he 

 wintered his box hives by turning them up- 

 side down in a dark room and leaving them 

 entirely uncovered, and I say it is an equally 

 good plan to winter frame hives in the same 

 way. How absurd to believe that box hives 

 have any superior quality for wintering, ex- 

 cept wliat accident has given them. Let me 

 here mention that Mr, Hitt uses frame hives. 



My own method of covering the hives with 

 one thickness of building paper has some 

 features to recommend it over entirely open 

 hives, viz., ecjual dryness and a better reten- 

 tion of the heat of the bees. But my present 

 feeling is that a single thickness of cotton 

 sheeting over the hives placed in a warm 

 cellar furnishes first-class conditions fo_ 



safe wintering when joined with the indis- 

 pensable abundant stores. 



Last fall, however, I prepared sixty hives 

 as follows and placed them in one division 

 of my new cellar. I gave each colony two 

 sections of my double hive ; I removed two 

 combs from each section, leaving eight 

 combs in each. These eight combs were 

 spread to fill the 10-frame hive. The hives 

 were raised two inches from the bottom 

 board. When all was quiet, a square of light 

 cotton cloth was spread over each hive, and 

 on top of this was placed a shallow box three 

 inches deep, full of sawdust. The entrances 

 at the bottom were left open the entire 

 width of the hive, front and rear. Now, re- 

 member, these swarms were each left on six- 

 teen combs in two sections of a shallow hive, 

 thus making very roomy quarters. Each 

 had large stores of sealed honey, mostly in 

 upper sections. The temperature was about 

 42= without 2' of variation. 



These bees have remained quieter the en- 

 tire winter than any like quantity I ever 

 knew, and I examined them to-day (April 

 (ith) and the colonies are all alive and abso- 

 lutely (juiet. There is not a speck of dysen- 

 tary on one of the white hives, and there has 

 been less dead bees on the cellar bottom than 

 I ever had from a like number of colonies. 

 Those bees are still in the cellar, and at 

 present it looks like a case of perfect winter- 

 ing; but it does not prove that they might 

 not have wintered equally well without cov- 

 ers of any kind and with less work in pre- 

 paring. I shall use these bees to fill my new 

 house-apiary which is now being given the 

 finishing touch of painting, and it looks, to 

 my mind, to be as perfect as one could ask. 

 I have managed to find room in the little 

 building (t<xl(!) for forty-six colonies with- 

 out extra crowding. I shall not remove the 

 bees into it until the soft maples are in 

 bloom and will not pack the hives in saw- 

 dust this spring, just cover warmly with saw- 

 dust in shallow boxes. I will feed each col- 

 ony two or three ounces of honey each day, 

 for a month or more, regardless of the sup- 

 ply in the hive. This feeding will be done 

 at the rear of the hive at tlie bottom, in new 

 feeders that I have made especially for house 

 use, although they are equally good for yard 

 use, in which I can feed the forty-six colo- 

 nies in thirty minutes without seeing, hurt- 

 ing or exciting a single bee. Now, if this is 

 a good honey year, and I don't get a good 

 crop from the house apiary, then they are 



