68 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



This sawdust will, from necessity, be more 

 or less damp, and in cold or freezing 

 weather the outside case will be frozen solid 

 to it ; and if the case is made tight, we have, 

 as nearly as possible, a dead-air space. This 

 is outside case No. 1. 



Outside case No. 2 is a box made of «8 

 stuff, without top or bottom, also dovetailed 

 at the corners, two inches wider, longer and 

 deeper, than the regular brood-chamber 

 used, thus leaving an inch space between 

 the walls. For a cover, a gable top is made 

 just enough larger to telescope over, with a 

 rim two inches deep. To pack such a hive, 

 this outside rim is pushed into sawdust, as 

 in the former case, and then packing mate- 

 rial is poured around between the walls and 

 on top of the cover, and the telescope cover 

 is slipped over the case, and the bees are 

 ready for winter. With both Nos. 1 and 2, of 

 course some sort of bridge is necessary, so 

 that the entrance of the hive can communi- 

 cate to the outside. 



Arrangement No. 2, I think, will work 

 satisfactorily, because the regular chaff 

 hives do. But some one says, " Do you want 

 to leave only an inch space between the 

 walls?" If you think that is not enough 

 you can have more ; but so far as I can 

 gather from reports, an inch-packed space 

 is just as good. 



Of arrangement No. 1 with a dead-air 

 space, I am not so sure of its successful 

 working. But so far in our apiary it has 

 done just as well as those that are packed 

 like arrangement No. 2 : and reports from a 

 few places show that it does just as well. 

 But in fairness I should say that the locali- 

 ties do not experience the coldness of our 

 more northern stations. 



As to cost, neither of these outside cases 

 should exceed lif) cents, when made up in lots 

 of 100. The iirst mentioned can be made 

 for about 25 cents, by using building-paper 

 or painted muslin for a cover, with % boards 

 beneath. 



Now, then, why are these outside cases 

 superior to the regular chaff hives, both out- 

 side and inside walls of which are perma- 

 nently fixed ? Before I answer this question 

 I will admit that the permanently fixed 

 double-walled chaff hives have given splen- 

 did results in wintering. There is scarcely 

 one nowadays who doubts their immense 

 advantage for spring and winter protection. 

 For a series of nearly ten years now, we 

 have lost scarcely three per cent, of the bees 



wintered outdoors in chaff hives. Spring 

 dwindling and cases of dysentery have been 

 so rare in our yard of late that they are 

 scarcely worth considering. If all colonies 

 wintered outdoors had young queens to go 

 into winter quarters, the percentage of loss 

 would be reduced to somewhere about one 

 per cent. Well, then, why do I want any 

 thing Ijetter ? Permanently fixed double- 

 walled hives, as I have called them, while 

 the results they afford are all that we could 

 ask for, are too expensive. The price of 

 honey hardly warrants their cost. In the 

 second place, they are large, heavy, and, of 

 course, awkward to handle and move about ; 

 and the fixed double-walled hives are some- 

 thing that cannot be very well adapted to 

 them. The ordinary wagon-box will not 

 take more than four of our large chaff hives; 

 and even with the addition of a hay-rack 

 theie can not be loaded much more than a 

 dozen. What we want, then, is all the ad- 

 vantages of the fixed double-walled hives 

 without their disadvantages; and this means, 

 in a word, the ordinary single-walled hive 

 with a removable outside winter case. We 

 have frequently loaded as many as 35 eight- 

 frame Dovetailed hives full of bees on a 

 wagon. Two such loads would make an 

 ordinary out-apiary, viz., 70 colonies. To 

 carry the same number in ordinary chaff 

 hives it would take six loads, to say nothing 

 of the great inconvenience of lifting them 

 on the wagon, and then lifting them off on 

 arrival at the out-yard. 



Well, how about outside winter cases ? 

 We can move them in a large hay-rack, and 

 stack them up six or eight feet above the 

 wagon-box, or higher yet, so that we can 

 take the whole number in one load ; and not 

 only that, we can move them in the fall 

 whenever we have the most leisure. These, 

 on arrival at the yard, can be set over the 

 hives, and then th{ bees are ready for win- 

 ter ; or if packing or leaves are necessary, 

 these can be slipped in between the walls, 

 and we have double-walled hives all packed, 

 and ready for winter. 



The point is this : ( )utside winter cases 

 and single-walled hives permit of moving an 

 out-yard by piecemeal; while in the instance 

 above given, half of the number of trips that 

 fixed double-walled hives would require 

 would suffice. 



But some one will urge that these outside 

 cases will be in the way during summer. 

 No, they will not. They will be just right 



J 



