iTHE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



nil 



wiiiterfl are "open," or there are .lanuary 

 thaws, allowing the bees to enjoy cleansin;,' 

 llit^lits ; while other winters hold them close 

 in'isoners for four or five months. It is this 

 element of uncertainty attendinij ti\e win- 

 tering of bees in the open air tiiat lias 

 driven us to the adojjtion of cellar winteriu},'. 

 Still, there are some ix^e-keepers who, from 

 some peculiarity of location, or of manaf^e- 

 ment, winter tlieii- bees in the open air with 

 (]uite uniform success: others are compelled, 

 for the i)resent, at least, to winter their bees 

 out of doors; in short, a larye portion of tiie 

 bees, even in the North, are wintered in the 

 open air, and probably will bo for a lon^,' 

 time to come ; and, while our prefereiuie is 

 the celliir, we have no desire to iiLjnore the 

 out-door method. Now then, if we arc ixo- 

 iii},' to practice out-door wintering, let us try 

 and learn the conditions from which the 

 best results may be expected. 



"J^he question of food and its relation to 

 success in winterint^ bees was discussed in 

 the Review one year at,'o, so we can take up 

 the next most important point, that of pro- 

 tection. We mit^ht remark, in passing, 

 however, that wiiere there is a certainty of 

 the bees havint: two or thi-ee thorou{,'li cleans- 

 inti flit^lits during the winter, a poorer f^rade 

 of food may be ii\\ei\ to bees wintered out 

 of doors than to those kept in the cellar ; but 

 if they can have no winter lli<,'iits, the 

 chances, even with [mov food, are with those 

 in the cellar. Now for protection. Shall it 

 be yiven, if so, what shall be its character 

 and (luantity, when <^iven, etc., etc. It 

 mit^ht seem as thouf^h the question of wheth- 

 er or not protection be t;iven in winter, in 

 the North, need not be discussed at all ; but 

 it has been objected to upon the grounds 

 tiuit the packing l)ecomcs damp, that it de- 

 prives the bees of the warmth of the sun, and 

 that they sometimes fail to fly in winter 

 (because the outside warmth is so slow in 

 reacliiuf^ them) when liees in sinyle-wall 

 hives may be in full tli^dit. There is occa- 

 sionally a still, mild day in winter upon 

 which the sun shines out bright and stronj^ 

 for an hour or two, and bees in single- 

 wall hives enjoy a real cleansing (light, 

 while the momentary rise in temperature 

 passes away ere it has |)enetrated the thick 

 walls of a chaff hive. On the otiier hand, 

 there are days, and weeks, and sometimes 

 months, uul)roken by these "rises in tem- 

 perature;" and the bees must depenil, for 

 their existence, upon the heat generated by 



themselves ; and the more i)erfect the non- 

 conductor by which they are surrounded, 

 the less will be the loss of heat. K{>ferring 

 again to the matter of securing the Might of 

 bees from chalf hives, we may say that sev- 

 eral have reportcul success by removing cov- 

 ers and cusiiions, and allowing the sun to 

 shine directly upon the franuvs, the bees (ly- 

 ing from the tops of the hives. For several 

 winters we left (luite a number of colonies 

 unprotected. Wv discontinued the practice 

 only when thoroughly convinced tiiat, in our 

 locality, and with our methods, the losses 

 were lessened by i)rotection. In mild win- 

 ters the bees (iame through in pretty fair 

 (!ondition. In severe winters the bees in the 

 outside spaces, or ranges of (!omb, died first, 

 the cluster becauH* smaller, the bees in nu)re 

 ranges died, and, by spring, all were dead, 

 or the colony so reduced in immbers, and 

 the survivors so lacking in vitality, as to be 

 practically wortidess. If bees are to have 

 winter protection, what shall that i)rotec- 

 tion \)oY (!ha(r hives have the advantage of 

 being always ready foi- winter, and of doing 

 away with the labor and untidiness of i)ack- 

 ing and unpacking, but they are exi)ensive 

 and cumbersonu^ It is some work to pack 

 bees in the fall and unpack them in the 

 spring, but light, single-wall, readily-mov- 

 able hives during the working season, are 

 managed with enough less labor to more 

 than compensate for that of packing and 

 uni)acking. Then there is another point. 

 The work of packing and unpa(!king coiiu^s 

 when there is comparative leisure, while the 

 extra work caused by having gi'eat, unwieldy 

 hives is brought in at a time wlien the bee- 

 keei)er is working on the "keen jumj)." 

 l''or i)a<!king bees wo have used wheat chaff, 

 forest leaves, planer shavings and dry saw- 

 dust without discovering that one i)ossessed 

 any particular advantages over the others, 

 so far as the wintering of the bees was con- 

 cerned. At i)resent we are using sawdust, 

 because it is the most readily obtained and 

 makesthe lea-itobjoctioaable litter about tlu* 

 hives. In f act,a thin coating of sawdust on the 

 ground about each hive is rather to l)e de- 

 sired. We suppose that cork dust is the 

 best i)acking material. Its non-conductivity 

 is nearly twic(! that of chaff, while it never 

 becomes damp or mouldy, nor settles down. 

 But it is not readily obtainable and costs 

 something, while the other substances men- 

 tioned cost nothing and answers every pur- 

 pose. What they lack in non-conductivity 



