THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



149 



Wintering Problems. 



E, E. HASTY. 



RIEND HUTCHINSON, if you had 

 ^ not poked uie up tlie second time, I 

 (ijk^i should not have said a word on this 

 topic. It is not very pleasant to write 

 on a subject concerning which one's mind is 

 unsettled. How shall 1 say "come " to the 

 young bee-disciples when " death in the 

 pot" is the only tare for them to come to? 

 I'm badly unsettled as to whether out-door 

 wintering is wliat we want at all — but then, 

 the world was made out-doors ; and bees 

 have wintered out-doors ever since creation. 

 Compromise between cellar wintering and 

 out-door wintering has made a ripple in my 

 ideas : and I am not through experimenting 

 in tliat direction. Let the bees have the ben- 

 etit of the fresher air, and the indirect influ- 

 ences that come from the sun, so long as 

 their powers of endurance are in no danger 

 of becoming exhausted : but, when that 

 point is nearly reached, ilieu take them into 

 the cellar, and into a temi)erature continu- 

 ously above freezing. It is noticable in col- 

 onies wintered in the open air that, for the 

 tirst part of the winter, they 'raise no brood 

 and consume very little food. As I liare 

 several times kept a colony on a delicate 

 scale all winter, I have had a good chance to 

 learn this. The consumption of food during 

 this period is only about i;, of an ounce per 

 day. Later in the winter the bees get astir 

 more, raise brood, and eat up the provisions 

 at a lively rate. It occurred to me that a 

 colony removed to the cellar just before the 

 period of (luiesceuce was broken would be 

 induced by the darkness, and by the even 

 and moderate temperature, to continue 

 (piiet for a much longer period. This would 

 mean less consumption of stores, and less 

 mortality among the bees : and, by no means 

 to be forgotten, the individual bees, when 

 spring fairly opened, would have more days 

 before them. I have, for two winters, ex- 

 perimented a little on this line, using, how- 

 ever, only a single colony for the purpose. 

 The lirst winter, I put the hive in .Ian. I'l, 

 and took it out April 15. Last winter, the 

 colony was carried in Feb. 2, and taken out 

 April l'.>. The schenie seems to work ac- 

 cording to programme. In the tirst trial, 

 the bees had no brood at all when taken out, 

 and were in excellent condition. In the sec- 

 ond trial, they had, when taken out, less 

 than a 1 ,(R)0 head of brood, mostly sealed. 

 So it is not yet certain but my future win- 

 tering method, when it arrives, may be a 

 compromise on this line. This will offend 

 the authorities who exhort in concert: " put 

 your bees in the cellar early, early, rarhj,'^ 

 but who cares a copper foi' what the authori- 

 ties say on such an unsettled matter? 



For this kind of ''swapping horses in the 

 middle of the stream," of course I shall not 

 need packing boxes, nor very heavy hivef, 

 nor any such rattle traps as would get out of 

 adjustment by being carried off and piled 

 up. My previous arrangements have been 

 I'attle-trappy to an unusual degree — two col- 

 onies in a hive with an enamel partition be- 

 tween ; a special bottom board for winter 



only, with a sawdust bed to keep all dry ; and 

 a drop chamber to jirevent getting closed up: 

 and a vertical entrance : and a do-fuuny en- 

 trance-board, etc., etc. Whether I continue 

 to winter out of doors or not, I am getting 

 tired of this thing. It makes too much 

 wotk : and the beiielit resulting fiom it does 

 not seem great enough to pay cost. 



One tlnug I think I shall hold on to for 

 awhile yet, and that is hives made of lath, 

 double walled, chaff packed and one story 

 high. They are warm, cheap, and light 

 enough for all oiilinaiy handling, except, 

 perhaps, for women and invalids. 



Another thing I am pretty well satisfied 

 I want to cast overboard at once, and as 

 completely as possible, and that is all un- 

 necessary air space inside the hive. Some 

 of my hives have had, for winter, consider- 

 able side space not occupied by bees or any- 

 thing else. I thought this an advantage, 

 and looked upon it as very much the same as 

 so much pure air within such easy reach of 

 the bees that they could not be cut off from 

 it. Now I feel sure this is a very damaging 

 mistake — that the air, in such near l)ut un- 

 occui)ied si)ace, is not crisp, pure air, but a 

 much corrupted article, luid the readiness 

 icith irliich .s(R'/( (lir comes to them when 

 then stir their iviiiijs a little, jtrevents the 

 (jcnitine pnre air from cumimj in. If ar- 

 rangements were just right, a little stir of 

 wings (which is as natural as breathing to 

 bees when the quality of the air does not 

 suit them ) would bring in the outside fresh 

 air. I take it as a prime principle of suc- 

 cessful out-door wintering, that air space 

 connected with the bees, but not actually oc- 

 cupied by them, be reduced to the lowest 

 possible limit. When we can have a cluster 

 of bees that fills the top of their chamber, 

 witli the space below, as neai-ly as i)ractica- 

 ble, reduced to a mere tube communicating 

 witli the outside, we shall have reached the 

 ultimatum in that direction, I think. Box 

 hives only partly tilled with comb, movable 

 comb hives with the combs not built fully 

 down, and too many combs in a hive, and 

 side chambers that have open communica- 

 tions, all violate the principle. 



As to the amount of honey to give, or allow 

 in tlie chamber to commence winter witn, 

 I liave all along held, and shall continue 

 to liold until I see some very different light, 

 that the general usuage is to allow a great 

 deal too much — it tempts the bees to eat too 

 much and give themselves the dysentery: 

 tends to increase winter brood rearing: 

 wastes the vital heat of the colony in keep- 

 ing so many pounds of material several de- 

 grees above the outer temperature; and, in 

 zero weather, it condenses moisture into 

 frost and ice at wholesale: then when a 

 warm spell comes the melting drenches the 

 interior, if not the bees themselves. Let at 

 least half the honey that the authorities pre- 

 scribe be hung in the comb closet, and given 

 back to the bees in tlie spring if desirable. 



It may transpire that the most practical 

 way to meet the two troubles of wintering 

 and excessive swarming, from both of which 

 I have suffered greatly, is to just let the bees 

 double or treble their census in the summer, 

 and then unite two or three colonies in the 



