THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



49 



freely from comb to comb. Without 

 the hard candy they probably would 

 have starved, even v\^ith honey in the 

 hive. 



Since then I have wintered exclu- 

 sively out-doors, and have been suc- 

 cessful in bringing quite weak nuclei 

 through by packing them warmly and 

 giving a cake of candy on top. Such 

 a nucleus is not worth much in spring, 

 of course, except for the queen; but 

 an extra laying queen in April is 

 worth a good deal. 



My neighbor and friend, Mr. J. L. 

 Byer, has said that an abundance of 

 good stores is the prime desideratum 

 for successful wintering, and I have 

 come to believe it firmly. Bees will 

 stand a great deal of cold, but in a 

 prolonged zero period they run tha 

 risk of being stranded on empty 

 combs, especially if the colony is not 

 very strong. But the cake of candy 

 on the top of the frames is always 

 within reach of the cluster, and af- 

 fords a passage way over the top 

 of the combs. Towards the end of 

 the winter the cluster will be found 

 hanging on the under side of the 

 candy. 



What bees will endure in the way 

 of cold has been well shown in the 

 past winter. The temperature fell as 

 low as 36 below zero. For over a 

 week it hardly rose above zero, fall- 

 ing every nipht to 10 or 20 below, 

 coupled with piercing winds, but on 

 a mild day at the end of February I 

 found all my colonies alive, somewhat 

 to my surprise. I discovei-ed that I 

 had somehow forgotten to put cush- 

 ions or any top packing on four col 

 onies. They had only a pie-'e of bur- 

 lap over the frames and a shallow 

 telescope cover on that, yet the col- 

 onies seemed in as good condition as 

 any of the rest. They had no candy, 

 but heavy sealed comlas of honey. A 

 neighbor of mine did not pack his 

 bees at all. He left the extracting 

 super on full of sealed honey, put a 

 piece of brown paner over the top, 

 and let it go at that. At last re- 

 ports the bees seemed to be doing 

 well. 



I have got the best wintering re- 

 sults from the divisible brood-cham- 

 ber hive, in two stories. I have tha 

 upper story entirely full of sealed 

 honey in autumn, making about 30 

 pounds, and there is a passage way 

 through the center of the hive. I sel- 

 dom lose a colony prepared in this 

 way. I also find they usually build 

 up faster in spring than the Langs- 

 troth, though Mr. Townsend reports 

 differently. I use Carniolans, how- 

 ever, or a Cai'niolan cross for these 

 hives. When the queen has filled the 

 top story with brood, mostly sealed, 

 I exchange the position of the sec- 

 tions. By the time the second half 

 is well filled, a third can generally 

 be inserted between them. The force 

 of bees that a three-story Carniolan 

 colony will send out is sometimes 

 amazing. You would not think that 

 they would swarm much from a hive 

 of that size, hut I find that they do. 



To get back to the hard candy— 

 I make it according to the directions 

 in the "A B C of Bee Culture." I 

 have made it soft and porous and 

 close-grained and hard, but when it is 

 soft it excites the bees and they take 

 it up too fast. I do not care how 

 hard it gets. When it is almost as 

 hard as a brick the bees seem to chew 

 into it just as well. I usually make 

 it in cakes about an inch thick, weigh- 

 ing from four to six pounds, accord- 

 ing to the needs of the colony. I 

 have never wintered a colony on 

 candy alone, but it has been done suc- 

 cessfully in Germany. A cake weigh- 

 ing eight pounds should do it, but it 

 would be necessary to give syrup or 

 honey early in spring, as the bees 

 will rear brood to only a very small 

 extent on candy. 



It appears to me that American 

 foul brood might be very well treat- 

 ed in the late fall by shaking the bees 

 upon clean, empty combs with a large 

 cake of candy on top. Any infected 

 honey would be stored in the combs 

 and consumed long before brood-rear- 

 ing began again. If anyone has ever 

 tried this I should like to hear how 

 it works. 



Management of 3000 Colonies of Bees in 50 Yards 



By J. J. WILDER, Cordele, Ga. 



During the third year's work in the 

 new field Mr. R. W. Herlong, who 

 was an extensive beekeeper located 



at Fort White, Fla., about sixteen 

 miles from my second branch of bus- 

 iness in the new field- died, just as 



