16 WINTERING BEES 



large cleated panels ma(le of cheap lumber for the sides and 

 ends, and with a roof of like material covered with roofing 

 paper. The whole is held together at the intersecting cor- 

 ners by means of Van Deusen hive-clamps, or hooks and 

 eyes or screws. When the bees are unpacked in the spring 

 the panels are removed and laid away until the following 

 September or October, when they are brought into use again. 

 The tenement hive finds its advocates and users in colder 

 climates — ^that is, climates where the ordinary double-walled 

 hives do not give quite enough protection, and where cellar 

 wintering generally prevails. But indoor wintering has its 

 disadvantages, as we will show a little later. Many cellars 

 are poorly adapted for keeping bees over winter. Special 

 repositories for the purpose are expensive; and even when 

 the best conditions are provided it requires a good deal of 

 skill to bring the bees through successfully from fall to 

 spring. And this is not all. The cellar plan of wintering 

 requires the moving of the bees in and out of the cellar, and 

 more or less attention during the winter to provide for the 

 varying degrees of temperature and the necessary ventila- 

 tion. Mr. E. F. Holtermann, for example, whose bee-cellar 

 is shown a little later on, gives the following reasons why 

 he abandoned his $1000 bee-cellar, described further on, and 

 has now adopted the tenement-hive scheme of wintering. 



When wintering in the above-named cellar my method was to remove 

 the bees from the cellar and place them on stands. They were next taken 

 to clover pasture, sometimes a distance of thirty miles. Next they were 

 taken to buckwheat, and finally returned to the' bee-yard in connection 

 with the cellar. 



By this method the hives and bees were unprotected during the spring, 

 also in the autumn, until placed in winter quarters about Nov. 20. I 

 was also compelled to be on hand when the cold'weather began to mod- 

 erate in spring, and there was always a good deal of anxiety as to the 

 best time to set out, sometimes to find that, owing to conditions of weath- 

 er, .manjr bees had perished in their first flight, and others had drifted 

 to the disadvantage of weaker stocks. 



There are various styles of tenement hives. One of the 

 simplest and best is the Bartlett. The cut renders the mode 

 of construction so plain that further description will be 

 unnecessary except to say that the several panels are held 

 together by means of wood screws. The four hives are plac- 



