

VOL. II. 



FLINT, MICHI&M. SEPTEllBER 10. 1889. 



KO. 



Out -Door Wintering — Success Largely a 

 Question of Locality— Thin Packing Pref- 

 erable — Several Excellent Ideas. 

 Migratory Bee-Keeping. 



JAMES HEJJJJUN. 



NOW IF YO CJ are goiu'g to in.-^ist upon 

 exhausting, in hu advaucc editorial, 

 every subject yuu bring up for the 

 IvEViEW, leaving nothing for ns to do 

 but to agree with tiie most of it and i)ick 

 U.iws with the rest, you must expect to get 

 just what you advertise for. Now I will try 

 Lo tlo your readers, yourself and myself a 

 little good by dissenting from your leader 

 wherever my exi)erience has caused me to 

 believe ditfereutly. 



You think some bee-keepers, from some 

 difference of location or mauage;neut. win- 

 ter bees in the oi>en air with more success 

 than otliers. I thaik tlie lirst part of that 

 clause all right, but 1 fully believe there is 

 little in the management ; it there were, a 

 quarter of a century spent iufreely exchaiig- 

 iug ideas and methods would have reduced 

 ii to a common knowledge. But you are 

 just right about its being a question of loca- 

 tion. 



Like yourself. I have learned to never at- 

 tempt the wintering of bees without protec- 

 tion. When they are packed in wintering 

 boxe-^, I have found out-door wiuterijig best 

 //■ //(,' (rrullici- is not fiio .srri're. When it is, 

 ihe cellar is be^t. \Vhat we most need, is to 

 know what the coming winter is going to be, 

 and that we cannot tell until science has fur- 

 th;^r progressed. 



As your readers well know, bee-diarrhijea 

 is the one great cause of our winter losses. 

 And 1 believe that many of them further 

 kuow that the consumption of pollen jirodu- 

 ce- til :t disease : and, as low tempei-ature is 

 Ihe mail' cause of pollen consumi)tion, and 

 diinpiiess produces an e<iuivalent to a hnv 

 iviaperature, your leader is right to the 

 I'ouit just the same. Certainly, cleansing 

 ihu'lits remove the trouble as fast as it accu- 

 mulates, provided they occur frequently 

 ( iiiiugh. 



Now to the question of protection. Can 

 you tell why chaff hives, with such a narrow 

 space between the walls, have shown a bet- 

 ter record than the thicker packing where 



outside boxes were used? (Didn't know 

 they had. Ed. ) I cannot, but such is the 

 case. A\ . H. Shirley, a close observer and 

 skillful apiarist, declares that two inches of 

 space between the outer boxes and hive 

 proper are better than more. He cannot ex- 

 plain why : neither can 1, but I have a great 

 big susi)iciou that it is true. Like your- 

 self, 1 use sawdust for packing, because I be- 

 lieve it is as gooil as anything and cheaper 

 and handier to get. 



I am just niaKing L'OO of the boxes you de- 

 scribe at the latter end of your leader. They 

 will be absolutely water tight, and the pack- 

 ing will be put in so full that it will recjuire 

 a weight to settle the cover into place. Now 

 sir, I am arranging in this way jiurposely, that 

 tlie whole thing will not be a non-conductor, 

 hut H piiitial conductor: because I propose 

 to receive the heat of the sun's rays all 

 througli the winter whenever it shines. By 

 painting these boxes black, or dark red, the 

 sun's rays will heat them very rapidly, yet 

 the color will have nothing to do with the 

 hi at radiating outward from the bees when 

 the sun does not shine, and I am exiiecting 

 to see this arrangement winter bees better 

 than larger boxes. I shall make these little 

 boxes to staj' made, not to be knocked into 

 the Hat, and I can pile them up anywhere, 

 only keei) them out of the sun. The rain 

 will not injure them, and the sawdust can be 

 kept right in them. But little material will 

 be required for each colony. 



In order to experiment with Tery shallow 

 frames, I tilled a set of eight Bingham 

 frames, which are '2'2 inches long autl have 

 only 4'.2 inches of comb in depth, and I win- 

 tered the colony eight times out of doors. It 

 was packed with just such thin packing as I 

 have described, and it was among my very 

 best colonies every year except one. ( )ne win- 

 ter it died with the disease, but other winters, 

 when my other stocks died in the cellar, it 

 always came up Ijooming and strong. Shal- 

 low frames are better than deep ones for 

 wintering bees, as experience has demon- 

 strated. The reason is obvious. 



Yes, as I told you, what bees I winter in 

 the cellar will be packed in these little, dark 

 colored boxes all the spring, clear up until 

 the surplus honey receptacles go on. I am 

 making the boxes deep enough to take two 

 brood cases of my new hive. Then when I 

 desire to use one section I can do so 

 handily either with or without the rim 

 under it. 



