180 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



not worry any over the nearly 100 col- 

 onies that I had over at Port Huron. 

 About the first of May I went over to 

 Port Huron to see how matters were pro- 

 gressing-, and was astonished to find 

 more than half of the colonies dead. I 

 was a little puzzled at first, as, although 

 they were in single-walled hives, without 

 protection, they had plenty of bees and 

 stores, and were having frequent flights 

 in January when I bought them. As 1 

 carefully examined hive after hive, the 

 conclusion was forced upon me that most 

 of them had starved with honey in the 

 hives. It was a peculiar combination, but 

 one that is likely to occur in wintering 

 bees out of doors with no protaction. As 

 they were wintering in the open air with 

 no protection, large quantities of honey, in 

 the center of the hive, were consumed to 

 keep up the heat. The warm spell in 

 March resulted in the starting of quite a 

 lot of brood. Then came cold that con- 

 tinued for nearly two weeks. The bees 

 clustered on their brood, in the center of 

 the hive. Honey was out of their reach, 

 without leaving the cluster, and the cold 

 prevented their leaving the cluster. Pos- 

 sibly the cluster might have moved to the 

 honey (I don't know that) had it not been 

 for the brood, but the brood they refused 

 to desert, and the result was that they 

 starved with honey in the hive. Most of 

 the hives were found with a solid cluster 

 of bees enclosing some patches of brood. 

 The query might come up, why did not 

 my bees here at home suffer in the same 

 way ? They were wintered in a warm 

 cellar, and the consumption of honey was 

 very light compared to those wintered in 

 the open air with no protection. There 

 was honey along under the top bar of 

 nearly every fram.e. Some honey was 

 enclosed in every cluster. Another thing, 

 I had been over most of the hives here, 

 and equalized the stores, and this would 

 result in putting combs of honey in reach 

 of the center of the hives. If I had gone 

 over to Port Huron during the warm spell 

 in March, and equalized the stores, and 

 seen that there was a comb of honey 



right up next to the brood in every hive, 

 it is likely that there would have been 

 very little loss. As it was, there were 

 only 37 colonies left out of some 90 odd. 



Here are some of the lessons: Bees 

 are not wintered until spring comes, no 

 matter how favorable things may appear 

 in the middle of the winter. In the open 

 air, with no protection, is no way to win- 

 ter bees in Michigan. Never take things 

 for granted. Because my bees here at 

 Flint were weathering the cold all right, 1 

 took it for granted that those at Port 

 Huron were doing likewise. Taking this 

 for granted was a costly lesson for me. 

 I don't mean to say that the whole trans- 

 action of buying and losing a part of these 

 bees was a great financial loss, as the 

 price at which I bought the outfit was 

 ridiculously low; still, the bees would 

 have a certain value regardless of what 

 I paid for them. 



In Northern Michigan, the only losses 

 were from starvation. Starvation pure 

 and simple; and in a warm cellar at that. 

 We supposed that we had given them a 

 great plenty of stores, and with an ordin- 

 ary spring we would have come out all 

 right. In fact, at the Pioneer yard, where 

 Elmer lives, we did come out all right. 

 He took out the bees during the warm 

 spell in March, they had a flight, and 

 quieted down, and he protected the hives 

 with tarred felt. Then came winter 

 again, and it held its own for a month or 

 more. Not once did the bees have a 

 flight during that month. There was 

 snow and heavy freezing. About the 1st 

 of May it warmed up so that the bees 

 could be removed from the other two cel- 

 lars. In one cellar they had been con- 

 fined six months lacking six days. In the 

 two cellars between 30 and 40 colonies 

 had starved. The ones carried out had 

 had a flight and quieted down, as already 

 explained, and consumed very little honey, 

 while those in the warm cellars had be- 

 come uneasy and restless, and some had 

 started breeding, and the stores were 

 consumed. 



As soon as a letter came from Elmer 



